Copyright © 2000 Jack Hardy Music
I ought to know more than I know I ought to know where this road goes I ought to know great literature by heart the history of art this I ought to know I ought to know more than 1492 I ought to know what the Buffalo Bills do I ought to know more than the quarterback's wounded knee what happened at Sand Creek this I ought to know but I don't I ought to know about the sacrifices made I ought to know ration stamps, air raids I ought to know more than George C. Scott and John Wayne get shot this I ought to know I ought to know what the drinking gourd means I ought to know more than "I have a dream" I ought to know about the back of the bus and the crack of billy clubs this I ought to know but I don't (chorus:) I don't know nothing about nothing but I'm proud to stand upright I don't know nothing about nothing but my future looks so bright illumined by the light laugh-tracks, soundbites and a replay to get it right I ought to know I ought to know the songs of Joe Hill I ought to know Trotsky, Marx and Hagel I ought to know about the Haymarket hangings and the H.U.A.C. this I ought to know I ought to know about Oliver Cromwell I ought to know about the Gnostics and St. Paul I ought to know what Jesus really said and who the preacher takes to bed this I ought to know but I don't I ought to know what's buried in the landfill I ought to know about the clear-cutting bills I ought to know about pipelines and schemes what extinction really means this I ought to know I ought to know for whom the bell tolls I ought to know the pride and prejudice of polls I ought to know if the grapes of wrath are union picked by Victor Jara's hands this I ought to know but I don't (repeat chorus)
I can't love you if you won't let me if you find reasons to drive me away I can't love you like heaven sent me to fix the seasons and make them stay through all the falling leaves like another lost of their color, piled in the way walk with abandon kicking the summer flies in the face of talking this way goldenrod withers, turns brown and broken and fields of vision turn dark and gray for I have spoken these words of feeling I have my own dreams that have blown away can't find the shutter to freeze the feeling bright in vermilion that maple-leaf day stammer and stutter, vagrant and reeling that one-in-a-million that came to stay now and forever this velvet cover over the hourglass as time runs away I can't love you more than forever and still find the reasons to make you stay
the last time the moon was full it showed its darker side the mundane had the magic annulled making vinegar out of wine and the peddler wheeled his boxes a long way to the fair to retrieve his green-eyed daughter knowing she had followed me there the last time the moon was full the sun reneged its shine as if to prove who owns the pull of tide and sacrifice but I loved his green-eyed daughter and I brought her to that dance what chance had I, a pauper but that moon's enchanted trance the last time the moon was full it reaped his bitter fruit with his box of golden baubles and pencil stubs as proof the peddler lured the revelers back to their world of cares with his calculated laughter and his "johnny's so long at the fair" the last time the moon was full blasphemed its holy three emasculating maypoles with material force and thieves and I watched his green-eyed daughter as he placed her in his cart parading her as princess to eclipse her gypsy heart
Síle I brought you a dress I found on the side of the road and though I know you're deservin' of the best it's all I could be bringin' ya on my own and Síle this dark and flowered dress I washed it out by hand till the flowers shone reminding me of how you stand out from the rest your smiling eyes in these darkened days we've known (chorus:) chuir sí uirthi é (she put it on) chuir sí uirthi é (she put it on) an gúna dubh 's bláthanna (the dark and flowered dress) chuir sí uirthi é (she put it on) Síle you're young and in your prime and me my hair's already turnin' gray and oh how the tongues will go clickety-clack in time how the dogs will bark when the caravan's on its way and Síle in spite of all of this in the mist behind of Jimmy Long's house my memory does linger long on a kiss till this moon ran away behind the clouds (repeat chorus) Síle not to frighten you away but there are crosses by the side of the road where many a traveler has met up with his fate and mine will be no different I know and Síle a traveler you would be if this dark and flowered dress you would wear but though your heart be broken, though the priests turn you away I could love you well if you would only dare (repeat chorus)
síar ón nDaingean she took off her rings to play on the fiddle, to hear the night sing her song was of leaving and leaving no more of leaving tomorrow all at the church door one ring was from the lover she never would know one from the grandmother whose fiddle she holds one ring was from a faery rath in filigreed gold one ring just for wishing her future her own (chorus:) síar ón nDaingean is as west as you can go to the west only ameriky and the silkies below and your fiddle will not carry you over the deep but síar ón nDaingean is where she shall be her dark eyes darted as her fingers flew fast on the ebony fingerboard as if it could last as if the cracked old varnish 'gainst the bone white cheek could carry all her anguish her soul to keep "you'll be back" he told her "you've come back before" but this time she would not though the words they still tore through the strings of her heart and the sound of the sea "you love your damn fiddle more than you love me" (repeat chorus) "Saint Brandon preserve us" as she looked to the sea and "please don't desert us" as she passed through Trá Lí through the Sliabh Mis onto Abhainn an Scáil through An Daingean by dawn on the cliffs of Dún Chaoin paused to play one last song (repeat chorus)
and the blackberry still has its thorns and the blackberry still leaves its stains a dress damp and torn on the forest floor where nary a trace still remains and the blackberry may have no memory of you but I do and the wild apple still has its thorns and the wild apple still has its blooms but the flower that shows doth not smell like a rose and no one can eat of its fruit and the wild apple may have no memory of you but I do I viewed this garden from a distance especially in the flower of spring not knowing of nature's insistence not knowing the honey for its sting and the rose is a barrier of thorns after the petals have drooped and the staggering years with their own barren fears and the rose hips double-edged truth for these roses may have no memory of you but I do I followed your trail in dream-time though the footprints were long filled with sand I swore not to walk on that shore any more too much wreckage awash on that strand but that's me all alone on the shore with the flowers instead of a sword tempting the fates and the same hurricane to strike twice where memory is stored for the storm may have no memory of you but I do
yellow-billed cuckoo sittin' on that fence looking both ways like he don't have no sense sense of direction and sense of trust but he knows something in this land of dust and I sat lookin' in her deep blue eyes at her dark black hair and her little white lies lies of contrition and lies of deceit lying to herself and lying to me (chorus:) has he heard you singing that wavering song that don't know the difference 'tween right and wrong has he heard you wishing that you were free like the yellow-billed cuckoo that follows me a distant storm lightening up the sky frightening the horses that are ready to ride leaves on the trees turning inside-out gonna break loose, no shadow of doubt (repeat chorus) wildflowers bloom on a little bit of rain a little bit of hope on a desolate plain wildflowers wither underneath the strain of the wildfire burning up another man's name (repeat chorus)
how the willow weeps in the wind it sings though we've heard that song before but I planted this one just last spring outside my kitchen door for I knew it was your favorite tree and I knew that it grew fast but I think it all now vanity to think that tree would last and I planted it beside the spring its thirst like mine well known and the crocuses and daffodils to surprise you when they'd grown and the speckled bird that landed free and softly built its place but I think it all now vanity to think I saw your face how I wish I had a willow wand to burn this memory or burn the state of californ-i-ay in a wicker effigy for I found the feathers of the speckled bird where the fox its hunger filled and the willow weeps although unheard to think I love you still and the willow thinks it vanity to think I love you still
as I drive hell bent 'neath the sickle moon scattering leaves in blood red hues what tension shot me down this road hell bent so far that I almost broke I had once in mind to drag my bow after hart and hind and stag and roe if the shaft proved straight and my aim proved true I would bring it all back home for you (chorus:) this arrow was my only weapon this arrow guarded me quite well this arrow held no earthly tether no angel feather on a bat out of hell and with focus narrowed down to will and eyes cross-hatched against the kill there are no sins I will atone for muscle, sinew, gristle and bone (repeat chorus) and I rode and rode as clouds flew past with six white horses all lathered and fast my scars and marks have now worn smooth for I am this arrow and it came for you
only one sky sometimes in blue and sometimes gray only one sky can hold the stars in just this way though all the weight of wishes makes them fall though all the flight of feathers that intuition calls through all the storms that lash the shores till clouds have blown away only one sky can hold today only one moon shining on down through those trees only one moon transposing darkest melodies whether searing smile or hallowed full tucks us in at night or drowns us with its pull when first they told us that our love could never be this way only one moon could show the way only one time will I embrace you in this way only one time will time unlace this passing day when all the time we hold within our hands slips on through the cracks of feelings we try and understand only one time will I love you will I love you then only that time will never end
oh woman you say you did not know oh woman you say you did not know it was not your plan, it had no design got lost in the words but I choked on mine oh woman you say you did not know oh woman you say it's just a root oh woman an herb and a root picked in the morning dew of the new moon that caused all the mourning no one can sing to oh woman you say it's just a root oh woman you say your hands are clean oh woman you say your hands are clean as clean as a whistle cut down between a blade of grass and a grave oh woman you say your hands are clean oh woman you say you had no choice to sing in the morning or to stifle that voice and caught in the balance cold as ice that someone must pay though some would pay twice oh woman you say you had no choice oh woman you say it's just a stone no markings just moss on that stone deep in the forest where no one will ever know deep in the forest where no one will have to go oh woman you say it's just a stone oh woman you say you did not know
in the building of the boat perhaps a fatal flaw and it catches in my throat to think that I foresaw it's an age-old story told but I'll tell it once again of a knot that slipped its hold and a story has to end in the building of the boat perhaps a nail was bent in the crossbeams set afloat and by this an omen meant in the naming of the trees perhaps this one too young made it weaken in the knees and made it come undone in the building of the boat the tools lay side by side joining tongue and groove so smoothly it did glide in the carving of the bow the likeness of a bird as if it could sing now everything I'd heard in the building of the boat there's always chance unseen of the white squalls angry shoals dark faces of the deep curse the builder of this boat curse him all to hell but for an old man's salty hope for I know he built it well in the building of the boat perhaps a fatal flaw
well loved for the home that was in it and the crooked fuchsia'd walls but with the sow killed for a belly full how could this a home we call? with heavy hearts bundled in wool was it worth fightin' for? when it come from the sheep that graze the land that belongs to some distant lord until the boney bailiff the shrew-eyed boney bailiff the silk-pursed boney bailiff came a-knockin' at the door at the time the geese were flyin' honk over the hoary frost till road and church and cable knit all were double-crossed and neighbor gathered with neighbor 'round rubble a house no more with the money spent they raised the rent said "you'll always have the poor" until the boney bailiff the hackneyed boney bailiff the horsy boney bailiff came a-knockin' at the door well met at the well of loneliness where the dark trees used to grow before our time but within the time of the stories that we all know well fortified with whiskey and a barrel for one last wake tonight we'll drink to dear darlin' death which never made a mistake and wait for the boney bailiff the knock-kneed boney bailiff the dumbfounded boney bailiff to come a-knockin' at the door did not wait for the benediction nor wait for the battering ram we took what iron was in it to reflect the iron in man sharpened for one last harvest then it's off to a distant shore forgive me father for I have sinned now I'll go and sin no more but curse the boney bailiff the cantankerous boney bailiff the cadaverous boney bailiff who came a-knockin' at the door but curse the boney bailiff the pleadin' boney bailiff the beggin' boney bailiff who came a-knockin' at the door
and so I told you right from the start I cannot hold you to a change of heart there are things I could never say too young, too old to try to change our ways I'm not the person I care to be always waiting on bended knee for a change of heart how well we travel these outer parts yet cannot fathom these depths of dark and I would never be alone today if the piper didn't ask his pay and if that piping didn't drive the dance always waiting for the chance for a change of heart there's only one way to be alone and you must learn this on your own it's not the reason that brings you home it's not the season for what we've sown and that flowering I could not share cold earth and sunlight you would not dare for a change of heart and 'round this old house the wind it whines with a knocking keeping time it's not the first time, it's not the last it's not that springtime covers up the past and I told you right from the start sometimes forever just falls apart for a change of heart