Song Description

A bit of autobiography grafted onto the rest of life.

Lyrics

My parents bought some building land
Out near Monterey
A pinnacle of sky and sand
With a great view of the bay
Fifteen years later
That land still stands vacant
By the ocean
Witness to their faded devotion

And all the birds climbing the horizon
And every fish that would swim beyond its sea
Seem to gather in the sunrise
And bring it back
Bring it all back up to me

My wife's mother
Was born and raised in Paris Missouri
A dirt-poor farm girl nursing both her parents
She had to grow up in a hurry
Fifteen years later
Dirt-poor again
This time a newly-widowed mother of three
She had to wonder if she'd ever be free

And all the words she cried to the horizon
Every prayer she cast beyond the sea
Seem to gather in the sunset like a crown
And bring it back
Bring it all back down to me

And every hope ever forsaken
Every wish the wisher never sees
Surveys a road as yet untaken
Whose destination
They've left to you and me