North Adams (feat. Timo Andres)

Blacked out window panes

All rotten teeth as I drive by in my new car

I got a discount rate

A thousand little towns

All peeling paint and furtive eyes

A single store

Maybe I can buy a shirt

Oh Taconic Parkway

You great vein of New England

You taught us how to get upstate

While old Manhattan's sinking

As the sky it darkened

Got a dose of Northern sadness

Rolled up all the windows

And we talked into the blackness

I am five years old

We walk in wooded tunnels

Father, he and I

In coats an extra size

And right out there he

Told me stories he had dreamed

Of wizards and of ghosts

And in our too big coats

Autumn crunched loud in our ears

Frozen nozes winded eyes

New England disappeared

Autumn crunched loud in our ears

Oh, I swear I heard it say

I believe I heard them say

Oh small symmetry of homes in New England

You brought us from a long sleep

While History was blinking

As the sky it darkened

Got a dose of American sadness

Rolled up all the windows

And we talked into the blackness

There among the trees

A cow sat patiently

And memorized some lines of

Dickenson’s “I Died for Beauty”

Oh Great Parkway

Truth is on your shoulder

If it’s mossy if it’s bare

You’ll find the beauty there

Oh small symmetry of

Rain in New England

You peeled off all the summer heat

And left us some for drinking

As the sky it darkened

Got a dose of Northern sadness

Rolled up all the windows

And we stared into the blackness