Anything we should know about your change?
You can tell a few things about the soul of a town
From the blood of the men gone in the ground
Bankrupt and buried by war that is carried out
By messengers now
Was born here and married too young staring
The nose of the barrel down
Went milk to whiskey to the courthouse sitting
With her stoned in her wedding gown
My birthday's in two months and I'll be twenty one
I am the second oldest to an only son
Third generation to carry a gun
I've got brown eyes like my mother does
First I saw blood was in a soldier's hair
Drying to his forehead in the dessert air
I knew his name once but his face I don't dare
Recall in the moments I go back there
Off the record do you see my tears
On my face and in my ears
As the silos reappear
And all of our journeys have led us right back here
There's something in the water we've been passing around
We've eaten the berries there is no doubt
Like our father before us in his paper crown
Kings of nowhere that was ever found
The angels that used to be guarding our beds
Have all wandered off and left us instead
Too strung out and much too sick to defend
Laying in the bathwater all lit up again
It's not a rumor it's more than true
There's nothing I wouldn't do
Be somewhere with only you
Share a little of these constellation blues
When it comes to my death let it be slow
May I be hunted in the hills I know
Let God be certain I was ready to go
But keep that secret from my children though
You can tell a few things about the soul of a town
From the blood of the men gone in the ground
Bankrupt and buried by war that is carried out
By messengers now
Was born here and married too young staring
The nose of the barrel down
Went milk to whiskey to the courthouse sitting
With her stoned in her wedding gown
My birthday's in two months and I'll be twenty one
I am the second oldest to an only son
Third generation to carry a gun
I've got brown eyes like my mother does
First I saw blood was in a soldier's hair
Drying to his forehead in the dessert air
I knew his name once but his face I don't dare
Recall in the moments I go back there
Off the record do you see my tears
On my face and in my ears
As the silos reappear
And all of our journeys have led us right back here
There's something in the water we've been passing around
We've eaten the berries there is no doubt
Like our father before us in his paper crown
Kings of nowhere that was ever found
The angels that used to be guarding our beds
Have all wandered off and left us instead
Too strung out and much too sick to defend
Laying in the bathwater all lit up again
It's not a rumor it's more than true
There's nothing I wouldn't do
Be somewhere with only you
Share a little of these constellation blues
When it comes to my death let it be slow
May I be hunted in the hills I know
Let God be certain I was ready to go
But keep that secret from my children though
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Album: "Glad All Over"
Lyrics: Jakob Dylan
Music: The Wallflowers (Jakob Dylan, Greg Richling, Rami Jafee, Stuart Mathis, Jack Irons)
"Constellation Blues" touches on global conflict, with its dead soldiers "bankrupt and buried by war that is carried out by messengers now," as Dylan puts it in the lyrics of the song. As the father of four, it's his biggest concern, he said.
"That's the first fear that anybody has who has children, that there's going to be a war anywhere close to them, and that their children may be asked to be involved -- especially in a war that they don't agree with," he said. "A lot of songs I write have images of that. That's just because it's eternal and war is inevitable. It's a strong place to draw the images you need to write lyrics."
Montreal Gazette