1. |
Caroline
04:44
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I’m riding, not driving
The sun comes up and there’s no place where I can hide
The places and faces
Around me stay the same and I don’t
I wonder why
I’m rising like the sun so bold
Coming o’er that Blue Ridge spine
My foot pressed to the floorboard
I’m gonna make it back home to Caroline
As I look westward
Out into a great unknown, I sing softly to myself:
“There’s nowhere out there
That ever could compare to my home behind”
But there’s a night train calling mournfully
From the heart of this land so fine
I feel a cool breeze winding to the sea
I’ll ride it all the way to Caroline
‘Cause our plans they change and so do we
I never thought to ask if I could leave
I only wanted to be free
Headed home all on my own
Never stopped to ask if I should go
I knew the answer would be no
So I’m riding, not driving
Sun comes up and there’s no place where I can hide
The places and faces
Around me, oh they all change and I don’t
Wonder why
I’m just rising like the sun so bold
Coming o’er that Blue Ridge spine
My foot pressed to the floorboard
But imma make it back home to Caroline
She’s headstrong, over-caring
Too reckless to define
I’m two hours out of Maryland
I’m gonna make it back home to Caroline
She’s a garden growing mercy
And compassion from her vines
I’m six hours out of Jersey
I’m gonna make it back home to Caroline
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2. |
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I met the ghost of Pat Conroy walking down the Sullivan’s Island shore
He offered me a cigarette, I said “No one smokes those anymore”
He said “Well, sonny could you tell an old feller like me
Where he’d be inclined to go and find some more lively company?”
I’ve been sleepwalking, up all night talking
Bout the troubles of the day, turn around and turn away
I’ve been running round this cobblestone town
All the statues they turn around and turn away
I saw the ghost of Robert Smalls sailing silently on past the fort
He left the sea, headed skyward in search of some heavenly port
But when he got close to that old crescent moon, it seemed to call him home
And his rebel ship anchored on a lip of lunar stone
I’ve been sleepwalking, up all night talking
Bout the troubles of the day, turn around and turn away
I’ve been looking round this church-infested town
For someone to help me pray but they all turn away
I can hear you ‘cross the bay
You’re scaring all them boats away
Like a siren on the rock
White supremacy, you knock
O Charleston, don’t look so afraid
These are ghosts that you have made
I don’t see a way out anywhere
Of this southern gothic nightmare
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3. |
Magnolias
03:25
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I don’t wanna look back now
I don’t wanna think about
The consequences
Of our ancestry
And all the destiny
They manifested
The greed of our fathers
The blood in the waters
We’re swimming in it still
Spanish moss in your eyes
And wrong ideas in your head
By now you’ve bought the lies
And you only see magnolias instead
Oh my God the shame
Oh it has a name:
Americana
A culture that we sold
To the land they stole
Spanish moss in your eyes
And wrong ideas in your head
By now you’ve bought the lies
And you only see magnolias instead
We’ll never comprehend
The pain, the grief, the loss
This ill-begotten land
Came to us at much too high a cost
A fire bell in the night
The rattles of the dead
Distort and twist your sight
Until you only see magnolias instead
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4. |
O My Fathers
04:02
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I walk in shadows of my fathers’ hands
Their fingerprints are etched upon this land
I ran it into dust cause that’s where I’m meant to be
O my fathers, o my fathers, don’t look so harshly now on me
For I am field without farmer to tend me green
I am a ship without a harbor or safety to be seen
Through some careless word or Godless deed
I must have angered the sky and cursed the seed
So I prayed for rain for forty nights and days
And now in my dreams the water washes me into the gray
When the seasons change, I’ve half a mind
To leave this dusty valley far behind
But if I ride to California, Lord, would you ride with me?
I bet my old horse wouldn’t get farther than the next county
Oh I am field without farmer to tend me green
I am a ship without a harbor or safety to be seen
And some nights I ponder
On how there’s nowhere left to wander
Oh my God I’m trapped by endless sky
I walk in shadows of my fathers’ hands
Their fingerprints are etched upon this land
I ran it into dust cause that’s where I’m meant to be
O my fathers, o my fathers, don’t look so harshly now on me
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5. |
Kudzu
03:00
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I went home last year
And the kudzu was growing o’er
My old hometown
All covered in green
Caroline my dear
Oh to look now, you’d hardly know ‘er
The pleasantest mount
You’d ever seen
You can’t go home again, I know that now
I learned that lesson from the vine that ate the South
Greatest of storms
O Hugo what catastrophe
You ravaged ten years
Before the first breath I drew
On the day I was born
In a city sinking into the sea
My father fears
He’s sinking there too
You can’t go home again, I know that now
I learned that lesson from the tide that swept the South
When the Ravenel Bridge folds
And the cotton fields all dry
And the steeples of old
Crash down from on high
They’ll paint o’er the signs
For 26 East leads nowhere now
And there in the vines
They’ll lay me down
You can’t go home again, I know that now
I learned that lesson from the tides and vines
And the crooked lines
And the sun that shines on the South
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6. |
Caroline (demo)
05:07
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