1. |
Not Coming Home
03:38
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Can you give me all I need the innocence and purity I crave
I’ve been climbing desperately to a mountain top I haven’t seen for days
An honest life I simply can’t sustain
Coming home today
All that’s left inside of me couldn’t bring an heirloom seed to bloom
I’ve only kept enough to plead for something that I can’t believe is true
My goodbye may not be when you choose
Coming home soon
Follow me through empty streets and bridges burned for hell to heed my
fate
I never wanted you to see the evil I could never keep erased
Patient like a diamond in the slate
Coming home late
Something pulls me from the clay I can’t make another day alone
I can’t even speak your name are you just a thing to claim and hold
Notarize my deed and watch me go
Not coming home
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2. |
Still Search For You
03:50
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I thought that I made a brother today
And while we were talking you swore from the grave
No one can fill the crater I made
A chill came between us and he walked away
Chorus:
I’m smoking in your old chair
The clothes that you left are all worn and teared
Our twin bayonets lie asleep on the shelf
And I still search for you in everyone else
I bottle my hope when I meet our kind
Grill him with tests and look for the signs
Laughter grows empty when always I find
He’ll never be what we had in mind
Chorus
Fiery loyal tempered in grit
Built like a blade on an outlaws hip
Not made for today but together we fit
You’d think that by now I’d be over this shit
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3. |
Big River Ballad
05:13
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I’m at the mouth of a big big river and
I’m surely gonna drown
I guess I’d like to taste that river and how far I’ll go down
Now I see it in your eyes, you know where I’ve been
And where I haven’t it’s just a habit
It meant nothing at all
Chorus
You’ll find me at the bottom
Of a raging river or a bottle
Grace will lead I will follow
Faithfully ‘til tomorrow
Lord knows I’m a liar
I’m at the mouth of a big big river and I know that it’s sink or swim
I’m drunk enough to test that river and how deep I’ll get in
Guess I used to have control Now I don’t know
What I’m thinking it’s just the drinking
It meant nothing at all
Chorus
I’m at the mouth of a big big river and I’m surely gonna die
But if I do or if I don’t we’ll meet on the other side
Guess I used to feel alive now I’m paralyzed
But I still feel it in my heartbeat
It means nothing at all
Chorus
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4. |
Talkeetna Tonight
03:01
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Has it been a while 3000 miles
And a ghost haunts the fabric of my flesh
Works me like a file and shapes me like a child
‘Til I let go because there’s nothing left
Chorus:
You know me I’ve always believed
In some sacred dream but now I see
That I am weak and incomplete
And all I need is a new beginning
Something ain’t right in Talkeetna tonight
I’m afraid that the shadow that I cast
Will load the dice and dim these northern lights
Crack a pane on the window of my past
Chorus
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5. |
Mercy Bark
03:22
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The most important shot you’ll ever take is the one you never want
The reaper came a week too late for my only son
My boy we were runnin' free ‘til February come
Now you can’t walk or breath and you're begging for the gun
Chorus:
Being a man is giving dignity and grace
Even when you're killing a love you can’t replace
Oh Copper dog of all that’s sacred we erase
You will be the part of me that I forever chase.
That old dog was the stoic prince of all he smelled or seen
How I grinned from ear to ear saying he belonged to me
Now how the hand of time grips him like a thief
All my pride took a ride into eternity
Chorus
Oh how the mothers speak of strangers taking burdens that are hard
I have no choice you see for I am he and he is me and I will follow him
into the dark
With all my heart a mercy bark
Chorus
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6. |
Dark Before The Dawn
04:28
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I’m thinking tonight of my entire life as a whole
And what it might mean if I ever get back in control
Alone and forsaken by everyone I’ve ever known
Hell I even abandoned myself some years ago
Chorus:
And I’m hardly holding on
In the dark before the dawn
I’m living clean oh I’m getting redeemed on this land
But it ain’t what you think it’s the toil of a much braver man
Lately I weep at the strangest things we understand
Like every new line that’s defined on the back of my hand
Chorus
Don’t call it religion when I seek salvation inside
It’s just surrendering all of yourself to this life
Man it gets lonely seeing the spite in their eyes
Before they walk away being blinded by any old light
Chorus
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7. |
Tears Worth The Gold
05:00
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No one knows the kind of weight we both choose
A thousand miles to smile and try to stay in tune
The fame we made has no escape and it tears our marriage in two
Try and stay thankful for it all
Salvage what is left when the curtain falls
Chorus:
I don’t want a life without you
Are the tears worth the gold if we don’t make it through
We go on in ten but we ain’t talked in days
Neither one believes what the other has to say
The agent says this is our only chance to play their evil game
Line ‘em up let the carnival begin
Feast upon our hurt it’s all we have to give
Chorus
I won’t sleep tonight I can’t keep from crying
Countless people care but who the hell am I
In the end I’m just your husband and I’ve vowed to give my life
When all the bright lights dim and dark
I’ll only be judged by how I held your heart
Chorus
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8. |
Terrified To Try
03:12
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I ain’t got a song to write but I’m grasping straws and not feeling right
I guess I’ve got nothing left
Now I miss all those wild time when the chemical had me swallow pride
And let me be somebody else
Chorus:
Stand up tall and learn to fight
In the face of all you writhe
No one here gets out alive
Wear your tears with open eyes
Let go of all you hide
Are you living life or too terrified to try
I got letters I ain’t never sent couldn’t tell you why they’re all torn
and bent
I guess they’re for myself
Happiness is like a highway sign you can catch a glimpse but it ain’t yours or mine
They’re left as beacons for help
Chorus
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9. |
Wyoming
05:16
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Well men like me probably die alone
With some broken dream on a dusty road
And it may be sad but so is everything that’s true
Well if life’s a gamble then I bet the table on a pair of twos
Chorus:
And the sun's probably shinin’ in Wyoming
And the moon she’s casting diamonds on a low lying stream
And when my soul is finally set free
You can burn my body in a prairie breeze
By candle light paper and ink
I wrote my final wish killing a drink
And I thought of you it happened more times than a few
I stared down a barrel and I wasn’t able to follow through
Chorus
When I’m gone please remember me
For my blue eyes and the songs I’d sing
Forget the bad I did all that I could do
If I could take it back I would in fact and give it all to you
Chorus
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10. |
The Paper And The Ink
04:33
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Your arrow ain’t sharp but age made deadly your aim
If I kill or get killed my dear would you love me the same
As I get older I realize that time has a way
And the patience you build in your youth will discern how you age
Chorus:
Some song I swore I’d never sing
from years before I held a dream
My pages worn like oaths I keep
I’ll die between the paper and the ink
This journal ain’t mine but it’s filled with my misery
Passed down by a friend who was taken too soon to complete
Bound in the blood of living like we were deceased
Now I live with the debt that it easily could have been me
Chorus
So lay your head easy and don’t shed tears for me
We are given this life but nobody said it was free
Chorus
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Benjamin Tod Kentucky
Benjamin Tod is a songwriter born in Sumner County, Tennessee. His songwriting pulls from over a decade worshiping the road and the bottle.
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