(Mary Chapin Carpenter/John Jennings)

He pulled out in a cloud of dust
Laying rubber and spewing rust
And on any road he’d take
He’d have his foot on the pedal and my heart on the brake
Underneath the smooth tar curves
A road is only dust and dirt
On a lonely interchange
The signs all look the same

‘Cause a road is just a road and a feeling’s just a feeling
No matter where you go, from Waterloo to Wichita
A road is just a road that the one you love is leaving on
And midnight’s another dawn, 100 miles ago
His wheels spun out of sight of me
Believing that I’d set him free
But I’d heard the voice of the prisoner
Saying he couldn’t get enough of her

You go by land, you go by air
You go by sea, hell I don’t care
You can go any way you choose
Wearing out the soles of your traveling shoes

And a road is just a road and a feeling’s just a feeling
No matter where you go, from Bangor, Maine to Bakersfield
A road is just a road that the one you love is leaving on
And midnight’s another dawn, a hundred miles ago

And every sleepless night I see him
Screaming by the scenery
Not noticing another mile
That’s rolled down between him and me

‘Cause a road is just a road and a feeling’s just a feeling
No matter where you go, from Saskatoon to San Antone
A road is just a road that the one you love is leaving on
And midnight’s another dawn, a hundred miles ago

Yes, a road is just a road and a feeling’s just a feeling
No matter where you go, from San Bernardino to Sault Ste. Marie
A road is just a road that the one you love is leaving on
And midnight’s another dawn, a hundred miles ago

(Mary Chapin Carpenter)

What I’m looking for, after all this time
Keeps me moving forward, trying to find it
Since I learned to walk all I’ve done is run
Ready, on my mark, doesn’t everyone
Need a place in the world

Could be right before your very eyes
Just beyond a door that’s open wide
Could be far away or in your own backyard
There are those who say, you can look too hard
For your place in the world

Takes some of us a little longer
A few false starts gonna make you stronger
When I’m sure I’ve finally found it
Gonna wrap these arms all around it

Could be one more mile, or just one step back
In a lovers smile, down a darkened path
Friends will take our side, enemies will curse us
But to be alive is to know your purpose
It’s your place in the world
Your place in the world
Your place in the world

He was a long tall stranger from way down south where he’d left his life behind
He had a big old Gibson and a pickup truck and Shenandoah eyes
And I remember him sitting in that local bar where I earned my pay each night
Singing my songs to empty chairs and going home half tight

So the nights rolled by like headlights shining on a lonesome strip of tar
I kept his words of kindness close to me like a pick on my guitar; And we
Talked about the singers and the songs we loved and the songs we’d most forgot
In that run-down bar they’d make last call and I’d never want to stop

‘Cause I was living on nothing but a young girl’s dreams
With my cowboy boots and my old six-string
Hitching my wagon to a star, dreaming of leaving those local bars
When I’d get him up at closing time for a couple of songs and a chance to shine
Like the star that he longed to be, he looked a helluva lot like me

He’d played a lot of places where the only wages were food and beer for free
No fancy licks, but he had him a gift for the kind of songs he’d sing
But you do what you can to be a satisfied man, just to have your peace of mind
So he gave it all up for a government job where the paychecks come on time

So now he comes to the bar to hear me play guitar and to share a drink or two
And we sit swapping tales of where we’ve been and what we’d rather do
There’s a wealth of danger when you’re talking to strangers, and I meet them all the time
But my heart knew better than my head when I looked into those eyes

‘Cause I was living on nothing but a young girl’s dreams with my cowboy boots and my old six-string
Hitching my wagon to a star, dreaming of leaving those local bars
When I’d get him up at closing time for a couple of songs and a chance to shine
Like the star that he longed to be, he looked a hell of a lot like me

Well, maybe I’ll quit when I got me a kid and a place to call my own
But tonight there ain’t nobody there waiting up for me at home
It’s a hell of a way to live from day to day not knowing where you’re bound
But the look in his eyes made me realize I was glad for the life I’d found

‘Cause I was living on nothing but a young girl’s dreams with my cowboy boots and my old six-string
Hitching my wagon to a star, dreaming of leaving those local bars
When I’d get him up at closing time for a couple of songs and a chance to shine
Like the star that he longed to be, he looked a hell of a lot like me
Like the star that he’d always be, he looked a hell of a lot like me

(Mary Chapin Carpenter)

She says it’s been so long, she can’t remember when
The mention of his name didn’t make her feel again
That everything is possible and every day a brand new start
Yeah, love’s something powerful when it finds a willing heart

Sometimes it’s a fire burning out of control
Sometimes it’s a candle burning long and low
All these years she never let it go
There’s a keeper for every flame

There is someone in his past that he hasn’t gotten over yet
Each day’s like the last, he just misses what he can’t forget

It’s just an empty space where something used to be
Now he guards the gate, but he’s lost the key
So no one enters, but no one leaves
There’s a keeper for every flame

Thought my heart had broken, but it was just a little bruised
I thought love had spoken, I guess I was just confused

Sometimes we were a fire burning out of control
Sometimes we were nothing but a candle glow
But it never died, baby, how I know
There’s a keeper for every flame

(Traditional)

Fare thee well
My own true love
Farewell for a while
I?m going away
But I?ll be back
Though I go 10,000 miles

10,000 miles
My own true love
10,000 miles or more
The rocks may melt
And the seas may burn
If I should not return

Oh don?t you see
That lonesome dove
Sitting on an ivy tree
She?s weeping for
Her own true love
As I shall weep for mine

Oh come ye back
My own true love
And stay a while with me
If I had a friend
All on this earth
You?ve been a friend to me

(Mary Chapin Carpenter)

Been walking these streets, been deciding what’s true
Been hands in my pockets, coat collar up, thinking `bout you
I’ve been talking to myself, giving fate the third degree
I’ve been eyes on the pavement admitting my part to strangers passing me
And I know it isn’t fair, but nothing’s ever been
Hey when you look at me baby, my god how I feel so good again
I don’t know where I went wrong, but it isn’t right to lie
Hey when you look at me baby, my hearts wide open, naked to the eye

Now some lovers are apart, but they’re never far away
I can see her in your eyes, hear her in your voice and I have to turn away
Oh what covet is to ache, is what aching is to me
For the arms of a man who knows who I am and where I need to be
And if I know what I know, then the lonely can’t pretend
When you look at me baby, my god how I feel so whole again
Is there heaven after all, or just this empty space
That no amount of time, nor comfort in it’s hands can ever help me face
Which is worse is yet to come, your rebuff or my resign
Hey when you look at me baby, I’m helpless as a child, naked to the eye

It’s like a fever and a spell, unbroken by a sigh
Oh when you look at me baby I’m going nowhere, just naked to the eye
Yeah when you look at me baby, everythings there, naked to the eye
Hey when you look at me baby, I haven’t got a prayer, naked to the eye

(Mary Chapin Carpenter)

I’m a town in Carolina, I’m a detour on a ride
For aphone call and a soda, I’m a blur from the driver’s side
I’m the last gas for an hour if you’re going twenty-five
I am Texaco and tobacco, I am dust you leave behind

I am peaches in September, and corn from a roadside stall
I’m the language of the natives, I’m a cadence and a drawl
I’m the pines behind the graveyard, and the cool beneath their shade, where the boys have left their beer cans
I am weeds between the graves.

My porches sag and lean with old black men and children
Their sleep is filled with dreams, I never can fulfill them
I am a town.

I am a church beside the highway where the ditches never drain
I’m a Baptist like my daddy, and Jesus knows my name
I am memory and stillness, I am lonely in old age; I am not your destination
I am clinging to my ways
I am a town.

I’m a town in Carolina, I am billboards in the fields
I’m an old truck up on cinder blocks, missing all my wheels
I am Pabst Blue Ribbon, American, and “Southern Serves the South”
I am tucked behind the Jaycees sign, on the rural route
I am a town
I am a town
I am a town
Southbound.