Blow The Carbon Out

They were breaking their agreement

Not to argue on vacation

Rolling past the roadside rows of corn

When a southbound truck comes drifting 'cross the centerline

Ray jerks the wheel and hits the horn

Petty conversation fades so quickly

As that wave of adrenaline splashed

They rest for a moment on the shoulder

Peg says "Lets stop and get some gas"

Oh there's something about the timing

As they pulled off into town

When no one comes out from the station

Peg goes in to look around

Inside, Peg can hear a conversation

From underneath a truck up off the floor

One voice echoes in the wheel wells

Says, "Bill I don't know what to do no more"

There's a silence as Bill's ratchet stops in mid-swing

"Carl," he says, "I never thought you ask"

"I hear you crawl by my station four times a day

With never more than one toe on the gas"

"Stop messing with your timing

Well it ain't your points or dwell

Let that engine feel it's power

Once a while just give her hell

And blow the carbon out"

Peg's been looking at a poster for a barn dance

As that fender well discussion turned her ear

Until a disengaged part, 'tween her head and her heart

Quietly slips into gear

She says, "Ray, what do we pay for therapy?

Seventy five, maybe a hundred an hour?

It seems the more we analyze every little thing

The more it seems that everything turns sour"

"Too much thinking about our timing

And on all these points we dwell

What we really need is this barn dance

Lets get a room, we might as well

Blow the carbon out"

That night, Peg could swear she's seen the fiddle man before

It's something about the way he stands up there

But it isn't until he leans down to take her request

That she smells transmission oil in his hair

Fiddle Bill can see it's been a long time since they've danced

It's written in the light across her face

He thinks, what a shame someone could leave their fiddle

Locked up that long in its case

Oh, they move in perfect timing

Dosey do, a left and right

Shadows dancing in the rafters

Gypsy moth around the light

Blow the carbon out

Down along Tomorrow River

In the mom, at the motel

Ray says, "Peg I can't remember

When I slept so well"

Blow the carbon out