Can I hold it fast
'Til 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