Appendix Lyrics

well i went to new orleans sling-shot through the air

and i let the hot peppers burn a hole in my tongue

i went back to my birthplace and my first taste of air

so i could bury my blues in the sound of the accordion

i went looking for my lost home in the rising sun

i went to the corner where my pa painted portraits

and i looked for the woman who sold his brushes

not much had changed since all of those rites of
passage

the mimes in the quarter sold me fresh flowers from
their buckets

and under their greasy smiles i found their frowns

and under their frowns ghost of smiles

well the pagans they sprang from the woodwork and
shadows

and somebody shouted "hey, kid get out of the street"

some children threw water from a two-story window

it splashed at my ankles and then it turned into steam

and i heard somebody laughing so it turned to see but
when i

looked up that fire escape they turned their back on me so i left fo alabama land of the red clay

where the kudzu crawls consuming all the dead and all
the living

where the water moccasins slither in the creek

and sun is the bright hammer that bruises everything

and i saw my life go by in reverse

so i followed it down to the crossroads

i watched my mother's first house burn to the ground

and that sacred old trailer was hitched and picked
clean

then i found the graveyard where the weeds split the
stones

and i felt the parents of my parents standing under my
feet

and they were holding me up you might say

then i drove parallel to a montgomery train

and i delivered myself back into the midwest

i arrived in the night while my brothers were asleep

i said the reconstruction failed again but i passed the
test

i went looking for my lost home and found none

but now i can sleep wherever i lay my body down

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