Lyrics:

This Black Earth’s Hungry

Oh, death has bound us all!
With his tyrant hands, in his iron bands          
Oh, vanity!
Nothing satisfies here beneath these skies

Every pleasure was a curse; I hated it
Every love and every like was a twisted thing
Got a hangdog, heavy, leaden soul
And leaden gray went all my gold
Like diamonds turned back into coal

Oh, death has bound us all!
With his tyrant hands, in his iron bands          
Oh, vanity!
Nothing satisfies here beneath these skies

This black earth’s hungry, ravenous
This black earth’s gonna take my sons
My wife and daughters, all of us
This black earth’s hungry to swallow up
Won’t take no bribe, no gold, no fuss           

Death has bound us all!
With his tyrant hands, in his iron bands          
Oh, vanity!
Nothing satisfies here beneath these skies
Whoa, oh

Well they say that there’s a time to love
And a time to hate—oh, don’t I know
Caught up in madness, Adam’s sons
Killers, thieves, even kith and kin
Bright envy-green, got a stone in hand

The Ways of a Man

Son listen close, oh son lend me your ear
I know that you’re strong, you’ve got nothing to fear
But just know there are things that’ll tear through your soul
That’ll burn you to cinders like cigarette smoke
Like liquor and lies and a loose women’s lips
Like tearing your own house down on your head
Like eating that honey from poisonous comb

She’s brazen as brass and as loud as a horn
Her mouth is a sepulcher—scoffing and scorn
Oh, she looks soft as rain, but she’s sharp as a blade
Her bed is a graveyard, with numberless slain
All full of dead bones; don’t you give her your strength
All full of men’s souls, but all emptied of shame
Go with her and hate yourself down to your grave

Son, won’t you drink from your own garden’s well?
Why should your streams be all scattered?
Son, love a woman and you love her well
Let her not be for strangers but for you
The ways of a man, they can bring him to glory
Or hangdog, they’ll bring him to shame
So what kind of man will you be in this story?
A beggar, a bore, or a king?
A beggar, a bore, or a king?
A beggar, a bore, or a king?

This One’s for the Darkness

Well she felt mighty high with that college degree
And her little apartment, her job, and her freedom
She wouldn’t be anyone’s marionette
Didn’t need anyone’s strings buried there on her back
Said, “Girl don’t you settle down, home is a cell.”

Just get on this pill, and oh hey, here’s another
This one’ll make certain you’re never a mother
This one’s for the pleasure, this one’s for the pain
And this one’s for the darkness that’s settling in
And this one’s for the end when you’re dying alone

Oh, it’s not too late
Oh, it’s not too late
Oh, it’s not too late
But it might be too late if you don’t hurry home
It might be too late if you don’t hurry home

Well, the years roll on by, but something keeps nagging
Tugging and tearing and rooting around
I know just the thing—another vacation
Thank God there’s not anyone slowing me down
I will not be anyone’s nursery maid.

But there’s a hole in her heart ‘bout the size of a cradle
Hollerin’, screaming, behind all the paint
Covering that paper-thin face you give ‘em
Smile, but don’t ever let anyone in
Be a good girl now, honey, go get that promotion

Oh, it’s not too late
Oh, it’s not too late
Oh, it’s not too late
But it might be too late if you don’t hurry home
It might be too late if you don’t hurry home

Oh, it’s not too late
Oh, it’s not too late
Oh, it’s not too late
But it might be too late if you don’t hurry home
It might be too late if you don’t hurry home
Oh, it might be too late if you don’t hurry home
Maybe now it’s too late—oh, you shoulda gone home
Maybe now it’s too late—oh, you shoulda gone home

Fruit is Heavy

That little white house, wasn’t it something?
Wasn’t it heaven, just me and you love?
But then all of a sudden, wasn’t it crowded?
Bed in the living room over the couch
And I never thought that I’d hear
Such a clamor in my living room
Quite the din, those little people,
A thundering frolic of me’s and of you’s

Keep your heart steady now, and your eyes clear
These are the days you’ll want back when they’re gone
Don’t wish them away; don’t forget, love
Fruit is heavy out there on the bough.

When it was up straight in the morning, stars still aglow,
Driving my rattling car down the road
Thinking about you, giving your all,
Making that little white house into home.
And those days rolled by like thunder,
Fell down like rain, and they blew like a gale.
Bending our branches, shaking boughs,
Wasn’t quite certain if our roots would hold.

Keep your heart steady now, and your eyes clear
These are the days you’ll want back when they’re gone
Don’t wish them away; don’t forget, love
Fruit is heavy out there on the bough.

Time is wild horse, fleet on the plains
And all the good days, they hurry on by
The blood that you feel so hot in your veins
Will turn back to the dust that gave us our name

Keep your heart steady now, and your eyes clear
These are the days you’ll want back when they’re gone
Don’t wish them away; don’t forget, love
Fruit is heavy out there on the bough.

Keep your heart steady now, and your eyes clear
These are the days you’ll want back when they’re gone
Don’t wish them away; don’t forget, love
Fruit is heavy out there on the bough.

By the Withywindle

She danced with daisies in her hair—like a springtime meadow
And all the hills would stop and stare—and the flowers sing out
Like golden bells upon the breeze—whoa!—with songs of sun and budding leaf

I heard her singing in the reeds—by the Withywindle
Like silver floating on the breeze—even old man Willow
Would hear her voice and he would smile—whoa!—her voice, like morning light

I took her hand and called her fair—river-woman’s daughter
We wed beneath the willows there—in her bright green grotto
The forest folk all came to see—whoa!—all fur and claw and cunning teeth

I took her dancing through the hills—like a river running
From mountain glade to valley fields, and the halls of summer
Rang out and sang in harmony—whoa!—as flowers bloomed and blossomed sweet

They call me eldest; I remember
The first seed and drop of rain
And my voice can set the trees and
All the hills to laughing song
My River Daughter, clear as water
And slender as a willow-wand;
She’s waiting for me, and the lilies
That I bring when summer’s gone
When all the leaves make golden halls—whoa!
When all the leaves make golden halls

Merry dol, merry dol Tom dillo

We’ll Have Our Home Again

Take me where I can see for miles
To granite-fair, and west’ring peaks
Where mist and cloud make spiring isles
And flickers frolic in the breeze

Take me to dark Cascadia
To wander clean beneath the rain
Where weathered boughs give way to the
Pacific waves upon the main

There is no place for us to go
This is our home, this is our home
From sea to sea, from root to stone
This is our home, this is our home

Take me to red-clay West Virginia
Tucked there between the folded hills
Where crickets sing out with the banjo
O’er sour mash and copper stills

Take me to bright West Texas skies
To smell the grass on Friday nights
Where dirt and leather harmonize
There with the boys beneath the lights

There is no place for us to go
This is our home, this is our home
From sea to sea, from root to stone
This is our home, this is our home

Take me to old America, where valor and where love
Ran true as steel in my fathers’ blood and made this land a home
Take me to old America, to me beyond all worth
To where my father’s father’s bones were laid under the earth

Take me to small town on the plains, and generations buried there
Where voices join in mingled strains on Sundays in the church
And after service, suppertime, take me to hearth and home
Whoa, we’ll have our home again
By God, we’ll have our home
By God, we’ll have our home

Death is a Vapor

Was a warm, spring day when I buried you
The swallows sang o’er the red clay dirt
And our little Lily with her face a mess
And flowers whiter than your wedding dress
Laid a garden where you laid to rest

And we joined the swallows in a Psalm or two
The preacher said the words over you
Ash to ashes and dust to dust
Seeds for planting, I’ll be next to you
’Til we break on up with the morning dew

Oh, love of mine, rest your weary bones up
Life is a breath, but death is a vapor for us
Oh, love of mine, rest your weary bones up
Life is a breath, but death is a vapor for us

You were whiskey warm, sweet on my tongue
A wild summer prairie thunderstorm
A benediction, a loud amen
I still remember how it felt back then
‘fore the Lord who gave you took you back again

Oh, love of mine, rest your weary bones up
Life is a breath, but death is a vapor for us
Oh, love of mine, rest your weary bones up
Life is a breath, but death is a vapor for us

Oh, love of mine, when that clarion comes
And shakes the dust and all these bones spring up
We’ll wake the dawn and join that glorious song
Life is a breath, but death is a vapor for us

Now standing here in the churchyard sun
Rememberin’ every selfish thing I’ve done
They sear the mem’ry, a burning thing
Ev’ry wayward word and crooked thing said
And I wish that I could do it all again

We can talk it over when I see you there
Through the valley and up o’er the hills
Where the morning breaks over whitest shores
Beyond the shadow, beyond that door
To the city brighter than a bride, adorned