Music and lyrics by Damon Waitkus

Lyrics

I climbed halfway up the mountain
and an old woman climbed halfway down,
and the birds started to titter
and the clouds blackened above the town,
and I got some kind of nervous
when a smile flickered across her face:
She said, “I don’t mean to alarm you, but
this is a race.

“I have been watching, and by now you ought to know:
that shadow’s going to walk with you wherever you go.
Eventually you’ll stop a while and talk to it.
And it tells you its a window and without it you’d be blind,
though the only scenes it shows you are the streets you’ve left behind.
Do you take it at its word or throw a rock through it?”
I said “I still don’t know, do you know?
Don’t ask me rhetorical questions if you don’t know.
It’s mean-spirited.”

From the foot of the mountain I dragged all my belongings
back to the swamp in which I first started breathing.
For every day that I’ve got nothing to show for
I could have been filling it with sand.

I met the devil on a desert retreat.
He said “I’ll let you in on something, but keep it discreet:
Its these holy fools that keep my soul alive.”
I said “I’m glad you told me, that’s a mighty relief.
You wouldn’t waste your time on my faint, whispered belief.
He said “Don’t fool yourself, I also keep a nine to five.”
So I turned on my heels and walked into town,
found a regular job and swore I’d hold it down.

From the edge of the desert I dragged all my belongings
back to the swamp in which I first started breathing.
For every day that I’ve got nothing to show for
I could have been filling it with sand.

Personnel

DW – voice, banjo, acoustic guitar, percussion
EP – 5-string and baritone violins, musical saw
KM – voice
JH – electric bass
JG – drums, bowed percussion