James McMurtry Follow

Ive got it all to myself now
Crack the window just a hair
Dark and close, the way I like it
Black tobacco chokes the air
I keep to myself, I lack the language
I measure out my life with coffee grounds
The trees are the color of ashes
In Charlemagnes home town

I said I didnt fear the distance
As if Id ever been that tough
I can hear your voice across the water
But thats nowhere near enough

Wont you fly across that ocean
Take a train on down
Because the nights growing lonesome
In Charlemagnes home town

The fortune teller told me nothing
That I wouldnt have found out on my own
She read my palm and she took my money
She looked at me with eyes of stone

She said the odds are long and stacked against us
Still we try because we must
To keep from leaving our senses
Long forgotten in the dust

Like the bones of some saint
Beneath a church floor
Who must have died for lack of light
The color snapshots I sent you
All came out in black and white

Theres a lonely child on a snow white pony
On a carousel in the market place
He sits on that horse and he looks right through me
A shadow falls across his face
What will I do when my glass is empty
What will I do when it all comes down
What will I do when it comes to nothing
In Charlemagnes home town