WOODWORK ALBUM LYRICS

GEOMETRY

Words and music by Beth Wood
Tuning: DADGBD

Between you and me there is no straight line
And the angle that I see has grown wider with time
The unknown to our equation is how to love without pride
But it’s beyond that natural boundary so we chalk it up to too-much-love-too-little-time

And for all the space you gave me
There was nothing you could do
Because my pride is a circle in a square
And in the corners is where I loved you

If you calculate our losses you could say we survived
But when we dove into the negative we made a triangle of our lives
So I hid myself from you in this tiny wooden box
But it was the beautiful sight of the light of day that I soon forgot

Chorus

Now the night is a black infinity, you’re not here with me
I don’t know what to do
We could add it up a thousand ways but it always comes out the same
For me and you

Chorus

MEAN TIME

Words and music by Beth Wood
Tuning: DADGBD

Black-eyed Susan with the braided hair
What are you doing in a graveyard of a town like this
She said it’s the weightlessness that keeps me here
And when I close my eyes I’m floating in the air
He said just wait right there, don’t be scared, I’ll be back for you right here
But it’s been seven years and I’m still waiting here for the mean time

My mama told me when I was a girl
There ain’t a single thing you can count on in this world
But I don’t believe it because I know for sure
Right now she’s leaving somebody else somewhere
He said just wait right there, don’t be scared, I’ll be back for you right here
But it’s been twenty years and I’m still waiting here for mean time

It’s so mean, time

A handsome traveler came in one day
He said he loved me and he’d like to take me out of here
I think I love him but I don’t know for sure
So I did the only thing that I know how
I said just wait right there, don’t be scared, I’ll be back for you right here
But it’s been almost a year and he’s still waiting there for the mean time

It’s so mean, time

LOVE LETTERS

Words and music by Beth Wood
Tuning: DADGAD

Love letters to no one are relatively risk-free
You reduce the threat of rejection dramatically.
Love letters to no one — they don’t cost you a dime
You can sat whatever you’re feeling and take your time

To whom it may concern, I love your precious kiss
And I know we have not met yet, but let’s not concern ourselves
With details such as this

Love letters to no one — they don’t have a rhyme scheme
So put away your dictionary and daydream.
Love letters to no one — no postage required
There’s no stamps to be licked, no rushing to the post office by five

To whom it may concern, I love your haunting eyes
And I know I have not seen them, but at least I will be
Pleasantly surprised

To whom it may concern, I love you with all my heart
And I don’t know your name or your face, but at least we have
A good place to start

With love letters to no one…

STILL

Words and music by Beth Wood
Tuning: Standard

When we both stood
On the edge of the edge
You jumped off
To put a hole in me

And when my arms
Did not reach for you
That other place
Became your hell

Your darkness moved me,
But it kept you still
Your darkness moved me,
But it keeps you… still

And when your words
Came like bullets and knives
I believed them because
I was supposed to

If I’d ever done
Anything I wasn’t supposed to
Then I might not have died
Instead of you

Chorus

HERE IS A ROSE

Words and music by Beth Wood
Tuning: Standard

Here is a rose for your pocket
I wear my overcoat like a dark cloud
A hunch-back cameo face with gloves on
Here is where I choose to place you now
In my coats, in my hat
The distance makes you light like cloth
Like white summer cotton

And I will wear you around the house
I will wear you around the town

And on most days I wear you to bed
That is where I held you tight
That is where a sad man sank
That is where I cried
Not from pain, not from fear,
And not even for myself
But from pure, sweet sadness

It is called home because we return to it
It is called home because we must leave to return

I know you’re leaving
So here is a rose

TWO YEARS OR THREE

Words and music by Beth Wood
Tuning: DADGAE

In your younger days
Faces come like cars on a highway
But promises get made
And when you look at him and ask him to say
All he can manage to say is…

I can’t tell the smoke from the steam
I can’t tell you from me
I can’t tell you where I’ll be
In two years or three

So you hold up your chin
And your skin grows tougher than it’s ever been
Someone new comes your way
When he looks at you and asks you to stay
All you can manage to say is…

Chorus

You tell yourself that you’re being wise
It’s a pattern you learn to internalize
You start to buy your own sweet lies
Like the last thing i need right now is ties

One day your plan will crack
Someone will hold you without holding you back
And when he looks your way
He won’t even have to ask you to stay
Because you can’t wait to say…

I can tell the smoke from the steam
I can tell you from me
I can tell you where I’ll be – I know exactly where I’ll be
In two years or three
Or four or five or eternity…

HEAVEN HELP HER

Words and music by Beth Wood
Tuning: DADF#AD

Somewhere in the land of the sun
If you blanket the ground with your absolution
Heaven help her
And when you fill her ears with tearful whispers of your pain
For which you have a need that you cannot explain
Heaven help her

You know your blinding darkness
Is bound to cause your final crash
You will blame it on her beauty
When your eyes are turned to ashes

Somewhere to the tune of a desert wind
She is learning that you will break, but you will not bend
Heaven help her
And when you spill apologies from your precious mouth
She will chew on the anger, she will choke on the doubt
Heaven help her

Chorus

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down
But heaven help her when she reaches the ground

RAINDROPS

Words and music by Beth Wood
Tuning: Standard

In the space between the raindrops
Are tiny airborne whispers
That speak to those who listen
With a featherish tickle and a laugh

Children often hear them and dance
Champagne air-bubble kisses
Glissando sky ballet
What the heaves forgot to say

In the space between the raindrops

PABLO

Words and music by Beth Wood
Tuning: Standard

If it were Pablo instead of my sorrow
Speaking to the page, he might say…

My love, my sweet, the wind weeps through the wheat
The night sky is a net and my heart is heavy that you have
No smile left for me

If it were Pablo here today, he might say…
I to whom others have assigned bitter coldness,
I who has led you –reluctant, frightened and shivering –
Through the forest that is my soul

If it were Pablo here today, he might say…
My little one, i have saddened you for the last time
That you have no heart left for me – I will accept this as my sentence
For eternity

If it were Pablo

THIN LINE

Words and music by Beth Wood
Tuning: DADGBD

She walks a thin line
It’s so thin she forgets where to tread
And it’s only a matter of time
The knives fly from her lips stained candy red
the blood splatters when she talks
And the thin lines are the only kind she walks

She walks it thin as paper
Her steps writing every word
And you love her until you hate her
Until her absurdity becomes absurd
The lines fade away like schoolroom chalk
And the thin lines are the only kind she walks

She walks it arrow straight
Her arms spread out like wings
She points and aims while you hesitate
Armed with her knowledge of sharper things
She perches on a wire like a hawk
And the thin lines are the only kind she walks