Josh Ritter - Thin Blue Flame lyrics

rate me

I became a thin blue flame

Polished on a mountain range

And over hills and fields I flew

Wrapped up in a royal blue

I flew over Royal City last night

A bullfighter on the horns of a new moon's light

Caesar's ghost I saw the war-time tides

The prince of Denmark¹s father still and quiet

And the whole world was looking to get drowned

Trees were a fist shaking themselves at the clouds

I looked over curtains and it was then that I knew

Only a full house gonna make it through

I became a thin blue wire

That held the world above the fire

And 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

Only a full house gonna make a home

I became a thin blue stream

The smoke between asleep and dreams

And in that clear blue undertow

I 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

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

Now the wolves are howling at our door

Singing bout vengeance like it's the joy of the Lord

Bringing justice to the enemies not the other way round

They're guilty when 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 is 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

Sings kiss thee hardy this poisoned cup

His winding sheet is busy winding up

In darkness he looks for the light that has died

But 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 like the twist of a script

Streets named for heroes that could almost exist

The fruit trees of Eden and the gardens that seem

To float like the smoke from a lithium dream

Cedar trees growing in the cool of the squares

The young women walking in the portals of prayer

And the future glass buildings and the past an address

And 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

And the world just beginning and the guests in good cheer

In Royal City I fell into a trance

Oh 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

My old hometown and the streets I knew

Were wrapped up in a royal blue

I heard my friends laughing out across the fields

The 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 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 up above

Heaven is 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 (x2)