Hozier - Butchered Tongue lyrics

As a child it was the place names
Singing at me as the first thing
How the mouth must be employed
In every corner of it'self
To say "Apalachiacola "
Or "Hushpuckena", like "Gweebarra"
A promise softly sung of somewhere else

And as a young man blessed to
Pass so many road signs
And have my foreign ears made fresh again
On each unlikely sound
But feel at home hearing the music
That few still understand
A butchered tongue, still singing here
Above the ground

And ears were chopped from young men
If the pitch cap didn't kill them
They are buried without scalp
In the shattered bedrock of our home
You may never know your fortune
Until the distance has been shown
Between what is lost forever
And what can still be known

So far from home
To have a stranger call you "darlin'"
And have your guarded heart be lifted
Like a child took by the hand
In some town that just means home to them
With no translator left to sound
A butchered tongue still singing
Here above the ground