Houses

The Midwest Quiet Houses Lyrics
1.Houses


2.Hungry for Silence (God's Patience)

You ate your dinner
Hungry for silence
Listen for quiet
and sing when it's violent
You drank a bottle
of all god's patience

Clear as a window
but shut like a curtain
Partial to reason
when faith wasn't working
Read like the bible
but still as uncertain

Have we been hanging on too long?
Will our children hear this song?
I know it won't take long
for me to find you

You paint the sistine
and pray all night long
You taste like gasoline
and sing out every psalm

Have we been hanging on too long?
Will our children hear this song?
I know it won't take long
for me to find you


3.Life Is Hard, Not for Us

Life is hard not for us
We left our crippled towns
and then we caught the bus
Down the road to somewhere bound

We kept ourselves from getting old
with tambourines and 7th chords
We saw city names
painted on the water towers

Pacific air inside our veins
Cyan days and naps on trains
Like giant trees
We float slowly to the bottom of the ocean

We could spend a life in plaid sunshine
We're raising up a roof with all our might
And i could go away and that's just fine

Life is hard, not for us
We read by fireflies at dusk
As evening came
and disappeared without a sound

Mr. Murdoch, are you there?
I want to be your faithful heir
Among the legionaires
of earnest musical traditions

I want to write like Miss July
I want the lightning in the sky
To spell the words
to every song i've never heard

We could spend a life in plaid sunshine
We're raising up a roof with all our might
And when I go away, that's just fine


4.Mason Jars

All the things you store in mason jars
Like grapes of wrath and chinese stars
Someday they'll swallow you

All the things that tell you what to do
Like magazines and sisters too
But they never follow through

When I was young, I felt so old
My body warm, my blood was cold
I thought I'd push on through

I ran out of time before I knew
how to survive and what to do
when people hated you

You used to decorate christmas trees
You thought you'd bring the world to their knees
But you know the world won't listen

The night before I first met you
I swore off love, and people too
or at least i wanted to

I saw your face on a drive in screen
Under dusty smoke and insect wings
Did they catch up to you?

Now there's cracks in all these mason jars
The sounds of spring in our backyard
There's something calling you

You used to decorate christmas trees
You thought you'd bring the world to their knees
But you were told the world won't listen


5.Islington

London do you miss me?
cause sometimes i miss you
I flew half an ocean distance
looking for a place
Where i could walk among the instruments
and hear the bells at noon
There's a man whose making violins
off Shaftesbury Avenue

New York do you remember me?
I used to run your pace
It's hard to see america
with these buildings in your face
I used to high five every statue
when you kept me up til dawn
When you're running for the subway
you trade a minute for a song

And I know
Things look better from far away
And I know
Sometimes you wake up in a different place

Columbus i am older now
I've gathered up the clues
Somewhere you're inside of me and i'm still a part of you
There are poets in these strip malls
They've come to pay their dues
There's men with golden voices
down on Parsons Avenue

San Francisco you keep falling
but the swaying makes you safe
Tucked into california
like a trough inside a wave
I will stay until I'm finished
I won't leave until I'm done
When you're living next to water
there is no where left to run

And I know
Things look better from far away
And I know
One day i'll wake up in a different place


6.Yellow Boat

She shot the lights out of my eyes
and then she started a fire inside

She stripped the color of my skin
and then she painted it all over again

She cut the flowers from my lawn
and then she planted a cactus farm

I don't know what she's gonna do next
I don't know how the day will end

There's a light on in the yard
There's a signal through the fog
There's a yellow boat I'm on

She stole the car from my garage
and then she drove it off Yosemite Falls

She burned my books and my guitar
and then she sang me a Bob Dylan song

She pulled a hammer in my head
and then she used it to build a hospital bed

There's a light on in the yard
There's a signal through the fog
There's this yellow boat I'm on