SPRING TIDE ALBUM LYRICS

PAPER KITES

Words and Music by Beth Wood
DADGBE

I’d be lyin’ if I said that I let it all go
we dance into each other and then dance on
ten years later I remember his hand just so
on the small of my back, and I can still hear the song
on the record player, ‘say a little prayer for me’

Paper kites, we let go the string
we watch them fly into the everything

The deep sigh, the wine, the helium sky
the way he carried me weightless to his bed
I’ve long forgotten all the reasons why
we turned to other arms instead
I suppose that’s just the way it goes

CHORUS

I heard he made it on down to Mexico
built a driftwood house out by the sea
sometimes I wonder If he ever did know
he carved a place in my memory

CHORUS

I’d be lyin’ if I said that I let it all go

LONG WHITE GOWN

Words and Music by Beth Wood
CGDGBD – Capo 5th fret

Idaho Girl, mother just gone
Staring out the window listening for a birdsong
Train whistle blows in the mirror blue sky
Rows and rows of green go flashing by

Big ol’ iron wheels spinning round and round
But on her lap in a box is a long white gown
Weight of the whole world upon her little shoulders
thinking bout a story someone told her about the

Long white gown, long white gown
Mother to daughter handed down
The long white gown

Working long days at the factory
Making a home in the big grey city
When the quiet comes she thinks to herself
about the box in the closet on the highest shelf and the

CHORUS

Her waist so narrow, her hopes so high
Tiny as a sparrow learning to fly
In that little white church on a sunny summer day
Her Daddy he stood up and he gave her away

Lace and satin and a slight ivory hue
It was something borrowed, oh something blue
Held together by buttons of pearl
Carried in the arms of the Idaho Girl

CHORUS

GONE TOO SOON

Words and Music by Beth Wood
DADGBE – Capo 4th fret

Jenny, I remembered something we have lost
without knowing we have folded in the losing
without feeling we absorbed the cost
and we carried on as if it were our choosing

Past the fields of cotton burning in the sun
and the mesa chalked with shades of red and rust
the horses grazed and sighed when day was done
and the night became a blanket for the two of us

Diamond stars, window sky, mother moon
what we shared there in the silence gone too soon

To a tender heart the world can be unkind
thunder rolling like a train come off the tracks
so you run to the first shelter you can find
tuck into yourself with the howling storm at your back

CHORUS

Jenny I am sorry, I don’t know where I went
my leaving never was what I meant

If you can hear me now, would you please show me a sign
I will keep an eye out on the setting sun
and  will carry the memory in the mean time
of quiet animals at dusk, moon on the horizon

CHORUS

CALIFORNIA

Words and Music by Beth Wood
Standard – capo 7th fret

San Francisco is a lady who is waiting
she is dressed up for the Friday night dance
remember when we came here? two teenage runaways
just sixteen years old, we were looking for a chance
to be free, but we got lonely
and after just one night we went home like they knew we would

California, California
we never knew lonely could feel so good

Doesn’t a day go by I’m not lonesome for someone
I guess I was just made for looking back
but everyone I ever loved gave me something precious
so I’ve got his heart full of jewels and I can feel the joy in that
and I feel free, I see diamonds on the water shining at night
and the mercy of a sun rising in the neighborhood

CHORUS

and the weight of the world is a heavy load
sometimes you just leave it by the side of the road
because you have everything you need,
you have everything you need
and you would not change a thing even if you could

CHORUS

San Francisco is a lady who is waiting
she is dressed up for the Friday night dance

BLACK COAL TRAIN

Words and music by Beth Wood
DADGBD

The way back is long and winding
like a snake out in the sun
cold hard fact, it’s hard to find it
when you think the end has come

And it’s such a shame
because love called our names
and we’ll never get it back
we let it slip off the tracks

We have wandered in the heartland
with no memory, no trace
we have stood upon the quicksand
in a desperate embrace

CHORUS

Railroad bridge across the canyon
cutting through the desert air
black coal train took us for ransom
when we let it tumble there

CHORUS

CHORUS

WIDE MOUTH JAR

Words and music by Beth Wood

Wide mouth jar full of wishes
Sitting out on the front porch in the rain
It’s held many things – fireflies and goldfishes
But when will it hold wishes again?
Pushpins, thumbtacks and rusty nails
Cloudy old grease from her frying pan
Oh wide mouth jar long forgotten
Holds just as much as your dreaming can

Wide mouth jar full of wishes
Used to sit in his room by the model airplanes
Bedtime stories and goodnight kisses
A mother and father tucked their little boy in
Then they each made a wish, placed it in the jar
Until it filled up, then they’d start over again
Oh wide mouth jar long forgotten
Holds just as much as your dreaming can

Baseballs, dinosaurs and magic tricks
Trophies, marbles and pick-up sticks
A box full of memories that she fixed
Just for him, just for him

Two rocking chairs sit there empty
The last of the distant relative has gone
A house that has stood for more than a century
Little boy turned into a man has come home
He stands on the porch listening to the rain
Newborn baby in his arms staring up at him
Oh wide mouth jar long forgotten
The time has come for wishing again

RUN TO YOU

Words and Music by Beth Wood
EbAbDbGbBbDb

What if I called you
I know I don’t call you anymore
What if I needed you
would you bust down that dusty old door

What if I miss you
but I’m too proud to say
What if everything I thought I knew
is slipping away

Would you come to me
Could you come
I don’t know what else to do
I want to run, I want to run
I just want to run to you

What if there were something true
bigger than the both of us
What if we could be kids again
see the world through eyes of trust

What if love is still real
even when it falls apart
What if it is enough
to hold the pieces of a broken heart

CHORUS

all those years will fall away
we won’t even have to say anything

I would come to you
I would come
any time you want me to
I will run, I will run
I will run to you

JANUARY RAIN

Words and Music by Beth Wood
CGDGBD – Capo 5th fret

Here at the edge of the world
sits a barbed-wire girl
We all want to know her name
we just want to know where she’s been

She says she can’t talk about that now
it’s all behind her anyhow
She thought she had a future once
but it was just the past repeating again

something’s calling her name
it’s calling her name
from a dusty picture frame
she stares into the January Rain

I watch the people come and go
Some have stories you get to know
I collect these tiny truths
from words I overhear
The man at the end of the bar
sipping whiskey from a mason jar
Says his heart lives somewhere else
but he sits there year after year

And something’s calling his name
it’s calling his name
And it feels like Novocain
he stares into the January Rain

I don’t want to be trapped inside a photograph
like some postcard from this nowhere town
That someone passing through picks up
And then tosses on the ground

When all the business is gone
silence like a canvas stretches on and on
My imagination spills out
filling up the page

‘cause here at the edge of the world
I am just an ordinary girl
Eavesdropping on strangers
to try and pass the days

something’s calling my name
it’s calling my name
It’s the poetry of change
I step into the January Rain

ALREADY SLIPPED AWAY

Words and Music by Beth Wood
DADGBD – capo 6th fret

The sun’s spilling out on the horizon
like a hand full of diamonds tossed in the wind
I’m worn out and empty but I’m still trying
to get closer to some place like home again

this heart is sore and this mind it won’t settle
this old engine hums to me from under the hood
out here I can see forever
but forever don’t look like I thought it would

There comes a time you must get up from the table
go and find your own feast if you are able
maybe I will cross your mind someday but it will be too late
because I’ve already slipped away

my loving you was an age-old story
I just never could picture how it would end
maybe it never does, it just lays out before me
like this road paved with all the good things I intend

CHORUS

time’s moving faster and faster
taking us places we never dreamed of
time will tell you if you just ask her
what ever happened to our love

CHORUS

SOMEBODY TO FIND

Words And Music by Beth Wood
CGDGBD – Capo 4th fret

There is a cold cup of coffee on the counter by an orange
there is an empty easy chair that’s still warm
there is a family photo yellowing at the edges
there is a bird in a cage with chewed out feathers

These are the things she can’t take with her
these are the things she’ll leave behind
for somebody to find

There are the monochrome work shirts hanging starched and pressed
there is the loaded gun under the mattress
there is the cast iron skillet with a lifetime worth of grease
there is a silver dollar coin next to a time piece

These are the things he can’t take with him
these are the things he’ll leave behind
for somebody to find

somebody like me
somebody like you
somebody who won’t know what to do

what are the things you can’t take with you
what are the things you’ll leave behind
for somebody to find

there are spent roses in the garden bowing to the ground