Giving Up On Your Hometown

(album: The Bird & The Rifle - 2016)

Well, I don't know
Where the cool kids hang on Friday night
Used to park our parent's car by the billboard sign
They tore it down years ago to build a small highrise
It's abandoned now
And it's been that way for a while, sometime

It don't make sense
But the cheap motel is always open
Seems like we're sitting in a handbasket
Wondering where it's going
There's a freshwater shark in a small fish tank
Behind the counter
Door's always locked
And you gotta pre-pay in cash by the hour

The sunsets still look the way they always do
Over the backyard trees
My grandma used to sit under in the afternoon
And you can't keep everything the way you want it
Feels like even the ghosts are getting out
Giving up on your hometown

Every single sunday, 10AM
We were in that pew
I was married there and baptized there
And my kids were too
My mother sang in the women's choir before she died
And the day they sold that church
Even the statue of Mother Mary cried

The sunsets still look the way they always do
Over the backyard trees
My grandma used to sit under in the afternoon
And you can't keep everything the way you want it
Feels like even the ghosts are getting out
Giving up on your hometown
Giving up on your hometown

Every kid that's left just kept going
And every debt we didn't pay
We just keep owing
Never visit your daddy's grave
But we go by the house
He'd be working on a car in the driveway
If he was with us now
And that porch swing you built for your mama
Is all but gone
I guess even when you stay right here
Sometimes you can't go home

Giving up on your hometown
Giving up on your hometown
Giving up on your hometown