Lyrics

As a kid all I could think about
Was getting out and running around
Heard my teachers and my bosses making offers to tie me down
But the poets and the misfits, the lost and profound
Were talking like the world’s a big ol’ tangle of souls

So I set out for the shimmering distance
Not dressed for the wind and rain
Unaware that any blessing worth having comes with a burden of pain
And all the love and all the hurt, the sacred and profane
Are bundled together in the bittersweet tangle of souls

The way wound through towns and tenements
Through deserts and dirty streets
I struggled to hear a kindred heart in the chorus of concrete
But by happenstance I chanced upon the ones I needed to meet
Such a rare thread in this vast tangle of souls

Between the field of stars above
And the fields of dead below
Taking a wayward shot at love
Giving it all back when we go

I saw plenty people living with nothing
And felt grateful for my shoes
For all the road took from me and all I’ve still got left to lose
Some nights I swear I hear this whole old world croaking the blues
Howling the hurt of this tragic tangle of souls

It’s a fleeting incarnation
It’s a gift that you can’t keep
Stardust with a will to live is all there is to me
Every atom’s borrowed and every heart’s a refugee
Looking for home in this strange tangle of souls

Between the field of stars above
And the fields of dead below
Taking a wayward shot at love
Giving it all back when we go

Some say this world’s an accident
Just a clockwork running down
Some talk like it’s a tournament where the cruelest gets the crown
Seems to me it’s a pilgrimage and every step is hallowed ground
A walk through fire in a holy tangle of souls

My brain boggles at the distance
That brought this song to you
All the bottlenecks and borders I put my body through
Hualien City to Haida Gwaii, Katoomba to Kalamazoo
Wide-eyed wandering through the fathomless tangle of souls

Between the field of stars above
And the fields of dead below
Taking a wayward shot at love
Giving it all back when we go