SCENES FROM HIGHWAYS 1981-2009
I let the car drift some
Eye your uncomfortable pose in profile
The postures of long drives
That endless cycling of your numb and near sleeping parts
And you lean much harder than you need
When the road curves
Swerve through traffic
And the cracks in the ground
Every gesture you require
Of a drive like this night
When you fight now
You just head out of town
I let the wheel go
Over center lines
Inside a place without time
A loop through history
Eye you in periphery
Now prone in the passenger seat
It’s a mystery
The ways you can sleep
I want to leave here
For where nobody goes
I want to breathe in the air of all
Those sprawling ancient spaces on earth
You said we’re so scared of alone
And I knew what you meant
You want to go where it glows
All those places where your watch doesn’t work
You were riding those nights
On the highway, always hiding out
Inside a songwriter’s dream there
Like a scene from a song
“Born to Run” or maybe “Running on Empty”
Ones where they would leave
Certain nights when you’d fight
You couldn’t stick around
So you’d head out of town
Just hit the highway and drive
Certain nights when you’d thought it was fine
But it shook you when the baby would cry
Why did you always turn around in the end?
To hear the shattering of glass on the door again?
So loud the baby couldn’t sleep any more?
What didn’t you find that you were looking for?
Your mother called a hardware
Set you up an interview
An answer to an ad
The bosses’ daughter still remembers dinner where her father
Said he wouldn’t stick his neck out for trouble again
But they did then
And those days you’d wake up
And just decide you wouldn’t show
He’d show up at your door
Nights you’d skip town
He’d follow you out
Pretty soon you started falling for their daughter
And she fell for you
Drive, roll every window down
Let the desert enter, heavy and primitive in
Drift ’til rumble strips sound
Time moves so slow but I know
That you meant what you said
You want to go where it’s frozen
All those places where the highways don’t reach
You want to go where it glows
Somewhere that time is irrelevant
You want to go where it glows
Somewhere the spaces are infinite
You want to go where it glows
Somewhere you don’t feel the hours pass by
You identified the flowers on the road
I rolled the windows down and shut off the radio
Did you ever think you’d end up here?
All those late nights you were driving alone?
You were riding to hide
Or you were looking for a brand new life
Did you ever think you’d find one back home?
Did you even think you’d get out alive?
Could you imagine then, the love you now know?
I think history’s a system of roads
And there’s nowhere it doesn’t go