Can I hold it fast

Till the final gasp

Can the tale survive the telling

Will this feeling ever last

And it's a long old slog

With that mean black dog

That calls from the mire

And dares my heart be free.

Try to keep it sweet

Baby make ends meet

Heading in the right direction

Just maybe down the wrong street

Speaking through the mesh

With her sumptuous flesh

That ghost in the wires that calls out my name

The mockingbird choir that calls it again

That old mystifier that dares my heart be free.

Baby now

Couldn't you just once

Just once let the damn thing be

Going around thinking like that

Won't have nothing left to hold on to.

All the subtle ways

That a face betrays

Every hurt that burns within it

In the flicker of its gaze

And as I fall beneath

Well it's a new green leaf

That tells from on high of all that is blessed

In each day that rises east into west

That springs from the bough

And dares my heart be free.

Baby now

Couldn't you just once

Just once let the damn thing be

Going around talking like that

Won't have nothing left to hold on to.

Feel that autumn wind

Where my hair has thinned

All the cares we never asked for

And all the loves we don't intend

And through my sleepless brains

Well it's an endless train

That pours through the darkness mile after mile

Drinking the diesel, burning the oil

That screams to the night

And dares my heart be free.

Dressed from head to toe

In the afterglow

Offering prayers and supplications

To quite what I'll never know

And then it drops so strange

Behind the jagged range

That circle of fire that dares my heart be free

That ghost in the wires that dares my heart be free

That voice from the mire that dares my heart be free.