Josh Ritter - Thin Blue Flame lyrics

I became a thin, blue flame
Polished on a mountain range
Over hills and fields, I flew
Wrapped up in a royal blue

I flew over Royal City last night
Bullfighter on the horns of a new moonlight
Caesar’s ghost, I saw the wartime tides
The prince of Denmark’s father
Still and quiet
The whole world was looking to get drowned
Trees were a fist shaking
Themselves at the clouds
I looked over curtains, oh
It's then that I knew
That only a full house gonna make it through
I became a thin, blue wire
That held the world above the fire
So it was I saw behind
Heaven’s just a thin, blue line

If God’s up there, he’s in a cold, dark room
The heavenly host are just the cold
Dark moons
He bent down and made the world in seven days
And ever since he’s been a-walking away
Mixing with nitrogen in lonely holes
Where neither seraphim or raindrops go
I see an old man wandering the halls alone
But only a full house gonna make a home

And I became a thin, blue stream
The smoke between asleep and dreams
And in that clear, blue undertow
Saw Royal City far below

Borders soft with refugees
Streets a-swimming with amputees
It’s a Bible or a bullet
They put over your heart
It’s getting harder and harder
To tell them apart
The days are nights and the nights are long
Beating hearts blossom into walking bombs
And those still looking in the clear
Blue sky for a sign
Get missiles from so high they
Might as well be divine
And now the dogs are howling at your door
Singing about vengeance like it’s the
Joy of the lord
Bringing justice to the enemies
Not the other way 'round
They’re guilty where killed and they’re
Killed where they’re found
If what’s loosed on earth will
Be loosed up on high
It’s a hell of a heaven we
Must go to when we die
Where even Laurel begs Hardy
For vengeance, please
The fat man's crying on his
Hands and his knees back in the peacetime
He caught roses on the stage
Now, he twists indecision
Takes bourbon for rage

Lead pellets peppering aluminum
Halcyon, laudanum and opium
He sings kiss thee Hardy, this poisoned cup
His winding sheet is busy winding up
In darkness
He looks for the lights that have died
You need faith for the same reasons
That it’s so hard to find
And this whole thing is headed
For a terrible wreck
And like good tragedy, that’s what we expect

At night, I make plans for a city laid down
Like the hips of a girl
On the spring-covered ground
Spirals and capitals and the
Twists of a script
Streets named for heroes that
Could almost exist fruit trees from Eden and
The gardens that seem
To float like the smoke from a lithium dream
Cedar trees growing in the
Cool of the squares
Young women walking in the portals of prayer
The future glass buildings and
The past an address
The weddings in pollen and
The wine bottomless
And all wrongs forgotten and
All vengeance made right
The suffering verbs put to sleep in the night

The future descending like
A bright chandelier
The world just beginning and the
Guests in good cheer
In Royal City, I fell into a trance
Cause it’s hell to believe there ain’t
A hell of a chance

I woke beneath a clear, blue sky
The sun a shout, the breeze a sigh
The old hometown and the streets I knew
Wrapped up in a royal blue

I heard my friends laughing
Out across the fields
Girls in the gloaming and the
Birds on the wheel
The raw smell of horses and
The warm smell of hay
Cicadas electric in the heat of the day
A run of Three Sisters and
The flush of the land
And the lake was a diamond
In the valley’s hand
The straight of the highway and
The scattered out hearts
They were coming together
They were pulling apart
And angels everywhere were in my midst
In the ones that I loved
In the ones that I kissed
I wondered what it was I’d
Been looking for above heaven's so big
There ain’t no need to look up
So I stopped looking for royal
Cities in the air
Only a full house gonna have a prayer

Only a full house only a full house