Can't Let Go

The night she stopped by my momma’s house Me and the fellas We were out on the run From a town that I swear Had it out for me since I was young Step to the rhythm on a night like tonight On the long walk from a corner bar Like a foot on my throat Her words came in from back home And made the distance so far There’s a reason for the things that we’re all scared to let go; A favorite record, fallen lover, or the sound of the road I know that it’s now or it’s never “Halleluiah,” sang the gospel choir As the thunder heads came rolling ‘round We felt the heat of that smoke And College Avenue choked As the mountain burned down We found just what we wanted We found everything I think we need to survive So I can’t be blamed on a dark summer night And yet sometimes I feel the overwhelming need to retire Return my body to the ether and this great spectral fire And lay down as the world turns over [Chorus] But there’ll come a time when my wars will be won And my great divide be slowly lost in the flood And spread out like alluvial fanning We’ll start a new life We’ll settle that place I’ll take Jen for a wife, have a boy So my name can live on When I die, I can be happy Now I know I can be a little bit hard to bear I’ve been a little unwell; I drank my weight from the swell As the wave washed me under here I can feel it in my bones every evening And I can tell it to the ghosts That I’ve been bringing back home Because I can’t let it go, and I can’t be alone There‘s a distance I’ve been closing in since I was a child A reason for the things still haunting me and driving me wild [Chorus] But there’ll come a time when my wars will be won And my great divide be washed away in the flood And spread out like alluvial fanning We’ll start a new life We’ll settle that place I’ll take Jen for a wife, have a boy So my name can live on When I die, I’ll die happy But I’ve been losing sleep Over how a man can ever reach atonement for his deeds If I can’t ready my aim, steady my breathing Focus my shot on a kill that takes meaning Slipping away, or is it retreating The only line I’m losing’s inside me Because she’s seen that I’m full of holes And I know that they show if the light’s behind me Casting off the stage, my constellation heart I sought to be assuaged and set my compass to her star Over the sea, divisional lines That divide up the king from his queen [Chorus] There’ll come a time when my wars will be won And my great divide be sweetly coming undone And spread out like alluvial fanning We’ll start a new life We’ll settle that place I’ll take Jen for a wife, have a boy So my name can live on When I die, I’ll die happy