(live at Maxwell's in Hoboken - 01.05.07)
you drag your tired paw across
your chapped & cracking lips
and open up a crimson slur
you spread each time you kiss
and the broken boy you bargin with
to turn back to the man
that you fell in love with once
but never saw again
is he in there? do you think he drowned to death?
well it's his decision to show this face again
so you grind your tired teeth
& curse the day that you were born
to a sunken line of irish wives a million miles long
devoted to the suffering they're certain they deserve
a husband, a cross to bare,
worry lines & a silver streak of hair
comes too early, comes to steal your sainted youth.
but it's your decision to stay or else to move
& i'm not a man of faith, no holy ghost for me
but you wear a crusifix to broadcast your belief
and the god i've read about can't go where he's not asked to go
so you've got a choice to make
save yourself, let him in or sit & wait
but you're waiting on a man who will not move.
so you must move for him and do what he can't do
this is worth it, the one life you can't change
i'm sorry sister but it has to be this way
i'm sorry sister but it's got to end this way
so stand up sister,
you've got albatrose to shake