Orphans

(album: American Slang - 2010)

Goodbye, circus wheel, maybe you rest along the seas
I have given you the fire of my youth and the triumph of my enemies
And goodbye, fair weather home and your faithless factories
I have given you the blood and the truth from the wounds that they laid on me
And whatever they left, I kept it for my own heart

And the lonesome understand with the choirs in my head
We were orphans before we were ever the sons of regret, my baby
On and on and on, how the alphabet boys carry on
And we were orphans before we were ever the sons in the songs

And now my lights, they never go down, they waltz the moon and the stars for me now
So you can find some local libertine to take your daughters out on the town
And I can feel it in my aging bones, how the sound of the rain mixes up
Into the fountains where I drank my hero's blood
And so I left you to find my very own hat full of rain

And the lonesome understand with the choirs in my head
That we were orphans before we were ever the sons of regret, my baby
On and on and on, how the alphabet boys carry on
And we were orphans before we were ever the sons in the songs

And now I'm trying to keep it straight, learning all the streets and the alleyways
And learning where they lead now that I'm left alone here to drive
But it's so hard to stand on your own against mirrored glass hot and cold
But the clothes I wore just don't fit my soul anymore
No, the clothes I wore just don't fit my soul anymore

And the lonesome understand with the choirs in my head
We were orphans before we were ever the sons of regret, my baby
On and on and on, how the alphabet boys carry on
And we were orphans before we were ever the sons of your songs

When we were young we were diamond Sinatras
Like something I saw in a dream
We kept our secrets and rules locked up tight like a tomb
Where the ballerinas lay