C
From the top of the flight
EmC
Of the wide white stairs
EmC
Through the rest of my life
EmC
Do you wait for me there?
EmC
There's a bell in my ears
EmC
There's the wide white roar
EmC
Drop a bell down the stairs
EmC
Hear it fall forever mor
EmC
Hear it fall forevermore
[Chorus]
GEmGEm
Drop a bell off of the dock
GEm
Blot it out in the sea
GEm
Drowning mute as a rock
GEm
sounding mutiny
G
There's a light in the wings, hits this system of strings,
Em
from the side while they swing;
See the wires, the wires, the wires.
[Verse]
G
And the articulation in our elbows and knees
Em
Makes us buckle and we couple in endless increase
As the audience admires
G
And the little white dove
Made with love, made with love
Em
Made with glue and a glove and some pliers
G
Swings a low sickle arc from its perch in the dark
Em
Settle down, settle down my desire
[Chorus]
D
And the moment I slept
CG
I was swept up in a terrible tremor
DC
Though no longer bereft, how I shook
Em
And i couldn't remember
D
And then the furthermost shake
Am
Drove a murdering stake in
CEmG
And cleft me right down through my center
D
And I shouldn't say so
CEm
But I know that it was then or never
GEm
Push me back into a tree
GEm
Bind my buttons with salt
GEm
Fill my long ears with bees
G
Braying 'please, please, please,
Em
Oh you ought not!
No you ought not!'
G
And then the system of strings tugs on the tip of my wings
Em
Cut from cardboard and old magazines
Makes me warble and rise like a sparrow.
G
And in the place where I stood
There is a circle of wood
Em
A quarter to which you chop and you stack in your barrow
G
And it is terribly good
To carry water and chop wood
Em
Streaked with soot, heavy booted and wild-eyed
G
As I crash through the rafters
And the ropes and the pulleys trail after
Em
And the holiest, holiest belfry burns sky high
[Verse]
D
And then a slow lip of fire
CG
Moves across the prairie with precision
C
While somewhere with your pliers and glue
Em
You make your first incision
DA
And in a moment of almost unbearable vision
CEmG
Doubled over with the hunger of lions
D
'Hold me close', cooed the dove
CEm
Who was stuffed now with sawdust and diamonds
[Chorus]
EmDGACG
I wanted to say 'why the long face?'
ACG
Sparrow perch and play songs of long face
ACG
Burro buck and bray songs of long face
AmC
Sings 'i will swallow your sadness and eat your cold clay
G
Just to lift your long face
AC
And though it may be madness, I will take to the grave
G
Your precious long face
AC
& though our bones they may break & our souls separate
G
Why the long face?
AC
And though our bodies recoil from the grip of the soil
G
Why the long face?
[Bridge]
GEm
In the trough of the waves
GEm
Which are pawing like dogs
GEm
Pitch we, pale-faced and grave
GEm
As I write in my log.
GEm
Then I hear a noise from the hull
GEm
Seven days out to sea
GEm
And it is the damnable bell
G
And it tolls, I believe, that it tolls
Em
It tolls for me!
And it tolls for me!
G
And though my wrists and my waist
Seem so easy to break
Em
Still my dear I would've walked you to the edge of the water
G
And they will recognize all the lines of your face
Em
In the face of the daughter, of the daughter, of my daughter
G
And darling we will be fine
But what was yours and mine
Em
Appears to be a sandcastle that the gibbering wave takes
G
But if it's all just the same
Then say my name, say my name,
Em
in the morning so that i know when the wave breaks
[Chorus]
D
I wasn't born of a whistle
CG
Or milked from a thistle at twilight
D
No, i was all horns and thorns
CEm
Sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright
DA
So enough of this terror we deserve to know light
CEmG
And grow evermore lighter and lighter
D
You would have seen me through
CEm
But I could not undo that desire
[Coda]
DCEm
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh desire
DCEm
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh desire
DCEm
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh desire
EmC
From the top of the flight
EmC
Of the wide white stairs
EmC
Through the rest of my life
EmC
Do you wait for me there?