1.To Chase Away The Birds

Black crows flying in your wheat field
Babies cryin', all you got's a paper shield
It don't make much sense to you
Who said it had to?

Most folks smile away the blues
I mean I... I guess they do
You never really know for sure
But I'm surviving on this hunch that everybody else is hurtin' too

He was crazy
Crazy but able
So he excused himself from cleaning up the stable
This is the way that horses die
This is the way you learn to lie-
By sacrificing the real and forgetting how to feel

I loved him like fire
We both had similar burning desires
He kept expecting it all to work out down here I just hang on to holy fear

Now I know how far out I'm getting here
But it's a dark night walk- the life of fear
And I'm trying to choose the words
That'll chase away the birds

Good God, just hurry up and come down here

2.Scared

Somebody just said something 'bout the devil
And I looked into your eyes
Honey, I think I saw a demon wink
Right through your thin disguise

Well, that's okay, I could run away and that'd be the end of that
Except I think I felt one inside me too
Right behind where I'm hidin' at, and

I'm scared
Honey, I'm scared
A stronger man might not be
Maybe a strong man would stay cool
But I'm not so sure that strong man wouldn't just be a fool

Now, babe, listen up.
I ain't sayin' that you're any worse off than me
I'm just askin' you to consider the possibility
That both of us are bound for hell
I don't want to say this too loud

Because I know I'll get an argument
From the thick surrounding crowd, but

Hear me babe this ain't no joke that I'm talkin' about
I really think there could be a problem that needs some straightening out
And if there is, it ain't just about guilt and shame
It's a matter of eternity
Oh, baby, please please please please listen to me, 'cause

3.Get Me Clear

I told a lie
Could you tell me why?
Heavy sigh
You gotta help me die
Cord of sin
You said you'd cut it.
Can you tell me when?
Jesus, kiss
Come and collect me for eternal bliss

Though it's against your nature to be impolite
Would You please break into my heart tonight
And steal away my fear?
Cause it's my nature to just sit and guard it
Though the prison doors, I'm afraid to depart it
I'm stuck right here

You gotta get me clear

I hear a word
Somebody says something that I know is absurd
But I give it room
Now, inside the greenhouse of my heart I got a deadly bloom
My fist 'round a rose
My hands all bloody from the thorns there, I suppose
But I don't let go
Sometimes I'm a coward.
I try not to let it show

4.Razor Light

You set the table in your spirit
Entertain the devil for a while
And then you laugh at all his jokes
Insisting it's alright-

It's okay to smile
But you are

Dancing with the demons
And walking on the wall that borders hell
Thinking "Right now, I'm not testing God,"
But always wondering how you'd feel if you just fell

I'd like to say that it was simple
Like a dog you don't want pregnant so you fix her
But it's a matter of unconscious sin
I don't know if you know it, but you're been brewin' up a strychnine elixir
Because you're

Are you walking darkly
To avoid the razor light
Did you lose the taste of flesh and blood
When you threw up late last night
Is your soul in some fine limbo
Between bitterness and lust
Can you talk about the cross these days
Without wincing in disgust

5.My Little Hands

She plays with my words like they were hers
Little soldiers in a war against themselves
She used to rob me of my own intent
But now I'm keeping my findings from her shelves
I used to think that honesty was all

Between the two of us, nothing should go unsaid
Then she taught me, although I took too long
That some things should be said to God and then just left for dead

I've got to learn to live alone
Just lean into the Wing
I've got to know that there is only One
For whom I sing
I've got to learn the difference
Between me and this place
Got to let my little hands
Reach only for Your face

I've felt the pressing of listening
I've known an empathetic overload
I've been a mile in so many other shoes
I forgot my own out on the road
But I'm coming now to understand
That where my heart is, there's my treasure
And the suffering that I am going through
Will be replaced with a glory that I can't even measure

6.Instead

The cosmic finger doesn't stir up rules just to ruin us
But He also doesn't let us do just whatever we want
And the eyes of God can see the force that's doin' us
He's givin' out chances to escape the haunt

Cause it's a touch of love that can free you of despair
And forgiveness rolls
Thank God He's so unfair
'Cause I should've been dead
For what's inside my head
But He killed His Son instead

Obedience can sometimes be monotonous
So we squander our hours in pettiness and lust
But God did not put life down here so it could rot in us
And there's a place we go after ashes and dust

My Jesus, I love thee
I know Thou art mine
To Thee all the follies of sin I resign
My Gracious Redeemer, my Saviour art Thou
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus 'tis now

7.Everyone's Guilty

She's got her eye on the wind
She resents her own skin
She wants to fly
She's got a bend in her mind
She treats herself so unkind
She don't know why

Innocent Jane
She's got an innocent name
But in the still of the night
Or in the heat of the light
She'll confess to you
That everybody's guilty
She'll confess to you
That everybody's guilty

Well, everybody can stare
They won't find nothing there incriminating
It's all buried inside
Where it can stay safe and hide
Latent destruction, lying in waiting

Come on, Jane, throw that stuff away
You got to let yourself die every day
Because the thief breaks in to kill and steal
He don't make no friends and his words ain't real
He will take you out and beat on you
And after all of this is through
He'll make you promise that you'll never tell
He wants your loyalty in the fires of hell
You got to run into the arms of someone kinder
Someone who doesn't care what a woman's put behind her

Just say, "Forgiver of sins,
Won't you come right on in
And in the still of the night
By a sweet candlelight

Tell me how You came to be the Savior of the guilty
How You came to be the Savior of the guilty."

8.Sweet River Roll

Homebound Henry's got a tumor in his head
He wakes up every morning after dreaming he was dead
He used to think that life was boring, but now that's not the case
He turns to his wife in the evening, he says "Honey I'm afraid I'm gonna lose this race."

Sweet River, roll all over me
Sweet River, roll all over me

Soaking wet Juliet- she lives in a well full of tears
Her husband left her for some bimbo after twenty-two years
Now she's got to start all over, but she's just so terrified
She thinks it woulda been so much easier if he woulda just died

And I'm lookin' out my car window sittin' in the pouring rain
Although your house is fifteen miles away, I can still feel your pain
I've thought and prayed and worked it through about a hundred times or more
How your soul just cries to everyone to help you get up off the floor
Right now it's morning, you're probably totally unaware
Of the flood of kisses you hold back by the way that you despair
It ain't me I'm talking about here, or anybody else you can touch
That's all I want to say right now, I don't want to say too much

Except Sweet Jesus, roll all over me
Sweet Jesus, roll all over me...
You gotta come down and just set me free

9.On A Night That Felt Outdated

Well, this night just feels outdated
It's a tired reminder of the bad
When you held on to what you hated
And you hated what you had

And your mind was out on the corner
Sellin' herself as something cheap
Your pride he says he owns her
And she's dumb, she follows like a sheep
She don't know what he does to a lover
He'll whisper lies in a restless ear

He tells a wife she don't deserve to hover
Over a man who doesn't seem to hear

Some things are easy to forget, even if they're bigger than the now
And she has tried to remember them but she can't remember how
So she lies on her bed staring up at the cracks in the ceiling
She's even pinched herself to wake up, but her body's got no feeling

Well he calls her out on the driveway
He's pullin' her by her hips
He says you ought to come by my way
And he kisses her on the lips

His mouth feels cold to her heart
Unlike her man who's still asleep in their bed
But she numbs herself to that part
And she leans to what she calls her head
And though her face had turned away for a moment
And her eyes had flashed a bit with doubt
She felt the tug of a brilliant showman
And she was on her way out

It wasn't long before she was out sellin' on the corner like something cheap
On a night that could feel like hell in the reminders that it made you keep
Like the one where you were standin' on the driveway
There was a cold feeling on your lips

Some woman's saying to ya come my way
And she's pullin' you by your hips
But the prodigal did not stay way
There was a destiny he had to keep

And I may give my mind a dirty day
But tonight I got floors to sweep

Some things are easy to forget, even if they're bigger than the now
And you have tried to remember them but you can't remember how
So you lie on your bed staring at the cracks in the ceiling
You've even pinched yourself to wake up, but your body's got no feeling

10.You Lay Me Down

The winter of emotions
Sometimes steals into my head
It's the tundra of the shutdown
It's the burying the dead
And I'd like to make my springtime
But I have no read recourse
But to wait on some long loving
From some deep and pure source

You lay me down
You whisper somehow
I can hear it when I'm very still
You don't ever touch me or chase away the chill
But one day soon, you will

The art of all my problems
Is in how they're resolved
I try until I'm hopeless
And then a hand so soft

Is brushing back my hair
From its clinging to my face
From crying
God I live in
Such a weak and desperate place

11.Hardened

There's a little child drowning in a pond
And you would have me throw a blanket on
The surface of the water
Even though she was your daughter

And watch just how helplessly she dies
For the sake of how it looks
Cause it's like you've read in books
It's a symbol of the way you see this life

And if a savior came upon a tray of gold
You'd insist that he had already been sold
Even though you knew he hadn't
You're afraid to trade the bad in

For a good you don't know
Like a certain generationIn a proud and headstrong nation
Who expects God to dance whenever she plays the fife

And if you want to talk in terms of the survival of the fittest
Then take a look at the soul's auction house and whose the highest bid is

You understand the fear of man
But you forgot about the fear of God
And to the bloody ransom
That makes an ugly soul turn handsome
You give a condescending nod

There's a sense of desperation in your touch
And you say out loud you hate it very much
But you're addicted to your sadness
Cause it creates the touch of madness

The kind you like inside your veins
Oh, why are you so hardened?
You know you could be pardoned
I guess you just will not let go of the reins

The lexicon of death is all you know
You feel suffocated by the falling snow
Cause you miss the beauty thereIn the quiet holy air
And start looking for a desert you can roam
Your eyes too closed to see
The secret ministry
Of the frost upon the window of your home
Oh, why are you so hardened?
You know you could be pardoned
And then you would not feel so alone
You're not alone.
You're not alone.
You're not alone.

12.If You Want To Get Free

In the gas station bathroom by the condom machine
I heard the word of the Lord
He said "Take off your shoes,
This is holy ground too

You know I came for the sick and the bored."
Beneath the selling of beers
And the welling up of tears
Out beyond the beam of the remote control
There's a whispering voice

That the humble ear hears
That says "I am still waiting
For you to ask just to be made whole."

And the bush it was burning on the mountain top
And though the leaves never blackened, the fire didn't stop
That's the way that it works in this old life of sin
You gotta let the fire burn you just to get clean within

I am so often deterred from my actual intent
By distractions in a cellophane wrap
And the cruel voice that taunts me when I open them up to find just one more box full of crap
It's where you're mocked while you abstain
And then cursed when you give in
It's all a game that's impossible to beat
But there's a peaceful refrain God'll sing in your brain
When you put the nails to your hands and your feet

And the smell of our sacrifices
Still fills up my head
There's just a few left at the altar, Lord
All the rest of them fled
And we've cried and we've tried
We've sweat and we've bled
But we don't just need atonement
We need to be raised from the dead

When they took down the cross from that dark hillside
The blood on their hands was the blood from his side
That's the way that it works, that's the way it must be
You gotta let His blood stain you of you want to get free If you want to get free

Don't you want to get free I think you want to be free