A Little Bit Broke Everything I buy comes a little bit broke Shy a few bits, why it’s short a few bolts And it gets hard to see straight on account of all the smoke Lord, it’s a long-shot but I’m full of hope We had another fight, we had another bout She started overheatin’ and I was trying not to shout I was sure that it was over but then the gas ran out What’s a believer but a man known to doubt? I get so tired of gettin’ the gears Won’t you pass me the pliers and cover up your ears While I pull it apart just to see what’s in the middle But it’s old, baby, old, and it’s all just too little Short of walkin’ away, I might just set it on fire I could chalk it all up to the shorts in the wires Now where in the world did I put down those pliers? We got around to talking breaks but all I heard was “Alternate-her!” It may have been I mentioned how she tuned her carburetor Well then she really blew a fuse--the radio and the radiator But when she bade a “Fare thee well!” I said, “I’ll probably see you later.” I get so tired of gettin’ the gears Won’t you pass me the pliers and cover up your ears While I pull it apart just to see what’s in the middle But it’s old, baby, old, and it’s all just too little Short of walkin’ away, I might just set it on fire I could chalk it all up to the shorts in the wires Now where in the world did I put down those pliers? Everyone I know is just a little bit busted Full of potential or potentially rusted Sure you might be outta sorts, you might just be a little maladjusted But if you turn that old screw there’s a chance you won’t trust it I get so tired of gettin’ the gears Won’t you pass me the pliers and cover up your ears While I pull it apart just to see what’s in the middle But it’s old, baby, old, and it’s all just too little Short of walkin’ away, I might just set it on fire I could chalk it all up to the shorts in the wires Now where in the world did I put down those pliers?

La Poderosa, Mi Moto I’ve been wondering about you, are you well Have the causeways caused you grief enough And do you find that time has made you tough Or soft I caught the faintest trace of mischief down your back And where you swivelled at your spinal cord I ran my hand up past the motherboard And pressed If you fall I’ll be right there flat on my back And if you call I’ll come a runnin’, saddle ‘n tack As the months that have no “R’s” would make no haste You sat in wait so old and clean With the edges of a daisy dream At bay Where I squeezed you turned and shivered at the taste Of what you knew would make you whole again Should a measured dose of oxygen Give chase If you fall I’ll be right there flat on my back And if you call I’ll come a runnin’, saddle ‘n tack I’m sending letters, for good measure, where you wait They read, “I’ll meet you where the air is thin And we’re bound to turn around again And stay.” This time we’ll lead a life that’s simple, on the run With a wake of lonesome shadow reels And a sound we’re stretching desperately To feel If fall I’ll be right there flat on my back And if you call I’ll come a runnin’, saddle ‘n tack

Of the Sea You're a naked and wandering ship in the sheets Quilted together in a patchwork of leaks But as any old vessel of landlocked dismay Yours is anchored to a pillow and asleep in its bay In a galley of cupboards that have all rattled free You allowed that the clutter be endowed to the sea But the heart of a gale knows its part in the mess In the heap of a sail, in the pile of your dress When I gathered you up, gathered up all your ground You made soft intimations that your world wasn't round I said, “Alice, don't hold me for the strength that I've found Carry these words for the way that they sound.” Though the edge of the earth looks to fall into space There's an uncharted world that a rudder might grace Four corners, four bedposts, four islands of feet For the trace of a tradewind on an old merchant fleet. When the calm settles in fully weighted and low You object as a wreck of the sand and the snow But a wake in the berth of a sentimental wind You partake of the earth-laden ballasts and hymns How a breeze fell upon what was left of a hull As a breath on the nape of your neck of a bow

Favourite Colours Those two colours settin’ yonder Are my favourite ones of all Where the sky divides its favours On the fallow of the fall And they set on ‘til December ‘Til there’s no colour left but Cold And it just waits from top to bottom To remind us of how we’re old April comes a lady Wearing only matted grass Standing out beneath the arch That swallows pieces of the past And Summer’s thunder laden columns Stretch to take up all the sky But that line of wheat below ‘em Keeps those colours in my eye I tried to put this to a young’un I set to lay these wonders down But he said, “That ain’t no magic. That’s just blue, and that there’s brown.” Now I remember my own folly When I would name the tings I met When I was young I too held brown and blue As the colours yonder set Comes a time the mind comes empty And just can’t help but to forget All the words for all the pretty things And the tales of how we met So when I wake up and greet the morning I clear my head of every name I look out across the prairies And meet those colours new again

Shootin’ the Breeze Whoodlin’, doodlin’, deedlin’, duck First I come free and then I got plumb stuck Oh, what I wouldn’t do for a pickup truck And a little bit of company With my face in the dirt and my feet in the sky I could have sworn that I owned me a piece of the pie But a piece of the picture got caught in my eye And the rest is just a history Whoodlin’, doodlin’, deedlin’, deee I’m gonna climb to the top of some fine-feathered tree I’m gonna fill up my boots for to follow my feet I’ll walk around like a moose just a shootin’ the breeze I knew a man who would whistle when he blew through his nose I saw a dog fight a thistle but you know how that goes Like an army of ants running over your toes Making tiny, itchy colonies I was told to make friends with a two-by-four So I framed up a window and I framed up a door But when I got people over they all fell through the floor And so I’m back to being lone-a-ly Whoodlin’ duck, wheedlin’ deee I’ve been a lord of the flies and a slave to the fleas I scraped most of the skin off of both of my knees I made a meal of a pickle in a real tight squeeze Whoodlin’, doodlin’, deedlin’, deee I’m gonna climb to the top of some fine-feathered tree I’m gonna fill up my boots for to follow my feet I’ll walk around like a moose just a shootin’ the breeze

Scrape on By I wanna scrape on by Oh let me scrape on by I don't want a big bite Just a part of the piece of the pie You know I creak and I moan I duly creak and I moan And I would love to call you honey But I can't afford a telephone And these are trying times I try and try all the time To go on peddling my wares but I get scared 'Cause these are trying times See, I could sell my things I could sell all my things And put my needs upon my back To thumb around just like the hobo kings But it's the same in the end To be of means, or to spend To let it tumble from the top, or drink the dregs We're just the holes that we mend Still, we can dance for free Come on and dance with me We'll go on shuffling our feet out in the street ‘Cuz we can dance for free I wanna scrape on by Oh let me scrape on by I don't want a big bite Just a part of the piece of the pie

Lay of the Land I keep wandering about the lay of the land Wondering about the hills and the rivers in a man If I'm made up of sky And the clouds bear my sins Would it be fair to ponder How the plains share my skin Your eyes hold your sadness like tractors wear rust And if I'm reading you right you're about set to bust As that slow inching sorrow gets ready to set I'll see it through to the Rockies ‘fore I turn from the West I keep wandering about the lay of the land Wondering how a field runs fallow in a man To see deluge through to drought And let my lowlands without Would be a barren reminder Of how I shadow my doubts Your eyes hold your sadness like tractors wear rust And if I'm reading you right you're about set to bust As that slow inching sorrow gets ready to set I'll see it through to the Rockies ‘fore I turn from the West I keep wandering about the lay of the land I wonder about the holler that'll swallow up a man As my shadows lay long And lead the dusk into dawn Would I be right to imagine That we're the same from now on

The Horse Thief & The Hang Tree They say a thief is born of the wolves... But our child of desire wore plainer clothes, he just ached for the things he stole. The day he made off with the reigns of a thoroughbred with a heavy mane he said, “God will surely now know my name. He found his feet on the horse and though an outlaw could hole up North he was blamed to a different course. If mercy falls late on the bless’d then a horse thief would earn a mile less. So he ran, ran without rest. Get ye West like the rains Be absolved in the river From whence you came Fly on South to the sands Be it known the desert’s home To a wanted man They say his feet beat the path of a ghost, that he rode on the rim of the rocks of the coast on the tail of a Nightingale’s notes. And he aged in the ways of a seer, rode a scarecrow on a boney mare without hope, without doubt, and without care. Get ye West like the rains Be absolved in the river From whence you came Fly on South to the sands Be it known the desert’s home To a wanted man Though we pray for the man on the mend the law got its way as it does in the end and forgot, he was caught, decades spent. What the folks of the town recollect are the eyes of a man who had seen through his death long before he was found short of breath. No one asked if he cared to repent but still the hang tree was ne’er lighter bent. All they hung were some clothes and a name of a man whom the desert had shaken of shame in the hollow of a hallowed refrain...