Hang On

(album: This Is For The Barbarians - 2022)

I remember your dad when he'd sweep the streets
Where gasoline fumes mixed with sycamore leaves
I was holding my breath with them sweet seventeens
In that soft summer air of that cosmic east
Now the sun shines bright on them Bryn Mawr girls
Dangling limbs off of side winding tilt-a-whirls
And hope is a bird on a wire above
And faith is a godless word never to come, never to come

Gabey was a baby when he went to buy weed
Keithy went hard into that gasoline
Dougy pressed lips in suite 7D
And blew off tomorrow and nothing was seen
Of them sweet butcher boys in them hard Philly streets
Of them sweet butcher boys in that soft cosmic east
And we danced until we cried
We sang Hallelujah until we died

My mama would take me by the hand
She would hold me and stroke my hair
She would bury that sun in that eastern sky
But she offered one piece of kind advice
She said, she said one thing
And I'll never fall
She said one thing, she said one thing that I
That I recall

When waves are arising
And the wind won't stop
When the earth dies screaming
And the angels won't come
When those towers fell and you gave up
When the earth cries blood and I scream shut up
All your guns are aimed now to the sun
You dream of glory and I dream of love

You dream of glory, I dream of love
You dream of glory and I dream of love
You dream of glory, I dream of love
You dream of glory, I scream hang on

Hang on
Hang on
Hang on
Hang on

You dream of glory, I dream of love
You dream of glory, I dream of love
You dream of glory, I dream of love
You dream of glory, I dream of love