Bruce Cockburn - Birmingham Shadows lyrics
[Bruce Cockburn - Birmingham Shadows lyrics]
Birmingham just behind the mountain
Sparse streetlamps glow in hot half-moon haze
Shadows shorten into little black
Pools then elongate behind
We walk, talk some, laugh some
Worked hard, now wired and hanging out
I'm curious what you might be all about
(Curious too what that dark shape in
The hard shiny cruiser might do)
And you have no idea what you're giving
Out of of your own curiosity and tense energy
Tattoo on chest like the key to
The puzzle of your pumping heart
Wearing your shadows all over your sleeve
Wearing the role of young upstart
Birmingham shadows fall
You show a little I let something show too
It's now or not at all out on the road it's
Always instant get-to-know you
Under velvet trees towering like the
Sides of a well
Before the empty too bright office blocks
(Which we are admonished not to enter)
Policeman studies us finds us confusing
More amusing than threat moves on bemused
Pavement spirals down ahead like the
Fossil of a giant shell
Along the kingdom's midnight marches
I wear my shadows where they're harder to see
But they follow me everywhere
I guess that should tell me
I'm travelling toward light
I guess something you sang
Made me remember that
I guess I'm saying thanks for that
Birmingham shadows fall
You show a little I let something show too
It's now or not at all out on the road it's
Always instant get-to-know you
Got a head full of horrors and
A heart full of night
At home in the darkness but hungry for dawn
I can only remember scenes
Never the stories I live
The good things about that is
It's easy to forgive
Can't make assumptions about any of this
We're nomads follow our own songlines
Who knows what could strike
Before we meet again?
But, if I fall down and
Die without saying goodbye i give you this:
You'll have lost a friend
Birmingham shadows fall
You show a little I let something show too
It's now or not at all out on the road it's
Always instant get-to-know you
Birmingham just behind the mountain
Sparse streetlamps glow in hot half-moon haze
Shadows shorten into little black
Pools then elongate behind
Sparse streetlamps glow in hot half-moon haze
Shadows shorten into little black
Pools then elongate behind
We walk, talk some, laugh some
Worked hard, now wired and hanging out
I'm curious what you might be all about
(Curious too what that dark shape in
The hard shiny cruiser might do)
And you have no idea what you're giving
Out of of your own curiosity and tense energy
Tattoo on chest like the key to
The puzzle of your pumping heart
Wearing your shadows all over your sleeve
Wearing the role of young upstart
Birmingham shadows fall
You show a little I let something show too
It's now or not at all out on the road it's
Always instant get-to-know you
Under velvet trees towering like the
Sides of a well
Before the empty too bright office blocks
(Which we are admonished not to enter)
Policeman studies us finds us confusing
More amusing than threat moves on bemused
Pavement spirals down ahead like the
Fossil of a giant shell
Along the kingdom's midnight marches
I wear my shadows where they're harder to see
But they follow me everywhere
I guess that should tell me
I'm travelling toward light
I guess something you sang
Made me remember that
I guess I'm saying thanks for that
Birmingham shadows fall
You show a little I let something show too
It's now or not at all out on the road it's
Always instant get-to-know you
Got a head full of horrors and
A heart full of night
At home in the darkness but hungry for dawn
I can only remember scenes
Never the stories I live
The good things about that is
It's easy to forgive
Can't make assumptions about any of this
We're nomads follow our own songlines
Who knows what could strike
Before we meet again?
But, if I fall down and
Die without saying goodbye i give you this:
You'll have lost a friend
Birmingham shadows fall
You show a little I let something show too
It's now or not at all out on the road it's
Always instant get-to-know you
Birmingham just behind the mountain
Sparse streetlamps glow in hot half-moon haze
Shadows shorten into little black
Pools then elongate behind