Lyrics

my grandma's from Alabama, there
after the letter 'v' comes 'dubya'
and every time we play rummy, she says,
"chile, I'm a-fixin' to whup ya" (and she usually does)
going to the city school
I was embarassed of my roots
yet I never had enough
to pull off the chaps or cowboy boots
but the levels are all shifting now,
it ain't about what's below and above ya

working in the oil camps up north,
it was cold and boring but the silences were big
country boys and maritimers
busted me up laughing but man, they were pigs
two roughnecks got drunk one night
and met some girls in town
the road was iced and the truck
went in the ditch when they came back around
but they hotwired a Bobcat
and drove drunk five miles an hour back to the rig

some of my friends are out planting trees
and other folks keep busy cutting them down
and we all have our sympathies,
the world mocks expectations all around
but we can't carry old grudges,
even if most of them are true
by the same measure that you judge
will it be measured against you
the levels are all shifting now
love the lost until they're found

back home it was beautiful
and effortless in the company of old friends
we wiled away the weeks that way
and got wilder on the weekends
but I split from all that English
and I turned from brown to green
remembering the world
outside of words and what they mean
the story's getting wider now, let's
take a look around here, not toward the end

look back on the road,
how is it that we've come this far?
and how is it that we're so blessed
to be exactly where we are?