Josh Ritter

[Chorus] Wanna go where the sweet water is Wanna go where the air is pure Out 'neath the sky so big I can give my heart to her [Verse 1] Somewhere along the line Our little train jumped the tracks She'd lost a little faith in me It'll take a little w...

My new lover, sweet and kind The kind of lover that one rarely finds And I'm happy for the first time, in a long time Came along and opened up the door And though I know I've been in love before Oh I feel it, so much more, than the last time And she on...

She walked right in As time slowed down But not enough To keep me from ordering up Another round In a bottomless cup That I had found In the hopes of never waking up the Jukebox played An old country song About steel guitars And how he'll try his...

Anne walks alone Past the Domino sugar factory She's as easy to know As a broken mystery Conversations are slow With herself in dead parking lots Hands not being held End up tying everything in knots And she's lonely You don't deserve what you've got Holy Fa...

The leading light of the age all wondered amongst themselves what I would do next After all that I'd found in my travels around the world was there anything else left? "Gentlemen", I said, "I've studied the maps" "And if what I'm thinking is right" "Ther...

fold yourself against me like a paper bird tonight we’ll fly awhile just give me the word and hold onto me like I hold onto you a steeple holds a bell the night sky holds the moon melting flakes of snow will catch you when you fall Baby that’s not al...

she’s a bad actress- but hey you give her the big lines anyway though her eyes are big as Canada and the hips are South Australia and the shoulder blade is Africa looking out on South America I’m out here on the sea and her heart ain’t where it oughta b...

All those kisses that we stole They're all cast in fire and gold In a gold no one can weigh We made out like bandits, babe And all those Bonnies, all those Clydes They're amateurs to you and I And coming home's a prison break And we made out like bandi...

Up here in the crows nest I am swimming through the breeze One last memory from the sun as it is sinking by degrees And high above the albatrosses, on the wing is light And I will sing to her as she flies by On this beautiful night Ahead is the horizon,...

Once I knew a girl in the hard hard times She made me a shirt out of fives and dimes Now she?s gone but when I wear it she crosses my mind And if the best is for the best then the best is unkind I realized that Illinois was more than I could stand They say w...

[Verse 1] I didn't come to ask you how you're doing these days Didn't come to roll no stones away, no I come to tell you that the end is nigh I come to prophesy, yeah [Verse 2] You wanted a messenger and I be he Your heebie-jeebie man in ecstasy But m...

Blame it on the Tetons Yeah, I need a scapegoat now No, my dog won't bite you Though it had the right to You ought to give her credit Because she knows I would've let it happen Blame it on the weekends God, I need a cola now Oh, we mumble loudly Wea...

just where it now lies I can no longer say I found it on a cold and November day in the roots of a sycamore tree where it had hid so long in a box made out of myrtle lay the bone of song the bone of song was a jawbone old and bruised and worn out in the s...

You got a lot of lovers with star-crossed wrists They keep a candle burning on the corner you kissed. One day I might die, until then there's too much to do But I'll keep a bonfire for you. I've seen the pretty boys that you're keeping around I know how...

now my work is done I feel I’m owed some joy oh Imogene and Abelard I’m your homeward boy but there’s another one who brings me to your door and the boat she weaved from the tidal reeds was always tied to shore with bright smiles and dark eyes bright...

going out to California gonna let the water warm my clothes I’m alone but I’m not lonely gonna trade the weather for the Western coast no don’t cry I’ll be back and I’ll bring the sun to shine in your eyes on your shoulders Sunset Boulevard will strip...

There ain't a street in this town that I ain't walked And I know them like I know your face But they're here and you're not and it's my luck That I can't go to sleep without you Oh there goes that old ghost, said the neighbors Ain't there nothing nobody...

I had a dream last night I dreamt that I was swimming And the stars up above Directionless and drifting Somewhere in the dark Were the sirens and the thunder And around me as I swam The drifters who'd gone under Time, Love Time, Love Time, Love It'...

If I could trace the lines that ran Between your smile and your sleight of hand I would guess that you put something up my sleeve Now every time I see your face the bells ring in a far-off place We can find each other this way I believe From the hills and up...

[Verse 1] All of my friends said "What's out in Cumberland?" "Gonna get lonesome when you get out to Cumberland" "Stay in the city, boy, winter is a wonderland" They all mean well I will remember them [Chorus] (Oh boy) Gotta get yourself back to the c...

You must be daddy’s little pumpkin I can tell by the way you roll You must be daddy’s little pumpkin I can tell by the way you roll It’s quarter past eleven And you’re sleeping on the bedroom floor I can feel the fire burning Burning right behind your...

How much do you think? How many tears do I have to drink? How much do I have left? How much blood in one man's chest? Darlin' Will you let me call you let you Darlin'? When will you let me call you Darlin'? Please Darlin' Will you let me call you let...

All that I felt on the first time it happened Was the feeling of something bad coming true One day I was happy, one day I was laughing Then, somewhere a chain snapped; like that, I was loose Why don't anything give me the joy that it used to? Why don't a...

I don't have any questions that you cannot answer I'm pretty simple that way Any fears I have left are just ghosts of ghosts That you drove away Don't drive away We were all built to last, guaranteed for life That's what everyone says Not under fluore...

Oh, save all of your light For those who can't sleep at night And they can't even sing to their shadows Oh they ride into town And they throw the shots down And they save the last round for the windows Singing don't let me into this year with an empty...

He'll laugh and say that he can't sleep And he don't know the reason why Maybe it's the evil eye Oh, that awful evil eye Remember how he used to hold you close Now in the middle of the night Oh, the evil eye Oh, that awful evil eye Someone must reall...

Louis Collins took a trip out west When he returned, little Delia had gone to rest The angels laid her away Louis said to Delia 'That's the sad thing with life: there's people always leavin' just as other folks arrive.' The angels laid her away When the...

The Angel of the Holy Grail saw Galahad come riding, so he took the Holy Grail off the shelf. And inside the Holy Chapel made for Holy Grail hiding, the Angel could be seen to smile to himself. "If you're the Great Sir Galahad from now on," said the Angel,...

[Verse 1] Mama got a look at you and got a little worried Papa got a look at you and got a little worried The pastor got a look and said, "Y'all had better hurry; Send her off to a little Bible college in Missouri" [Verse 2] And now you come back, sayin...

Peter said to Paul: "You know all those words we wrote, Are just the rules of the game and the rules are the first to go." And now talking to God is Laurel, begging hardly for a gun. I got a girl in the war, man I wonder what it is we done. Paul said to P...

Picture they took of you in your cowboy hat Makes you look like you are one of the boys Out on a Saturday night Meanwhile on the outskirts of the dance hall I'm a joke that you'd probably enjoy On the outside of Memphis all the building look big And the...

These chords are old but we shake hands Cause I believe that they're the good guys We can use all the help we can So many minor chords outside I fell in love with your sound Oh I love to sing along with you We got tunes we kicked around We got a bucket that th...

Brings me back to Harbortown Where me and my true love once lay We watched the lights go up and the sun go down Let the moon rise where it may There I stood, the river flowed There she stood my black-haired Jill The wind addressed her tresses black The...

Romero got married on the fifth of July In our Lady of Immaculate Dawn Could have got married in the revival man's tent There ain't no reviving what's gone Slipped like a shadow from the family he made In a little white house by the woods Dropped the ki...

Gonna find me a black eared bay Gonna meet me a black haired girl Who smells of smoke and caraway I'm on my way to find my own heart's ease. The high up-country is the place where I Have always longed to wander wild and free Among the slender and the pe...

[Verse 1] Henrietta, Indiana mill town Locked the factory down and shut it up tight My daddy and my brother and sixteen-hundred others Lost everything they had in the night Daddy got a taste for the hard stuff Henrietta, Indiana was dry We'd ride out to...

Under wide blue skies There's a place to lie For me and Evelyn To hide tonight I'll try my best to make a go But I'm not sure what I don't know Oh chariots, if you're out there Please swing low Tell me I got here at the right time And if I did, it's...

[Verse 1] I feel a change in the weather I feel a change in me The days are getting shorter And the birds begin to leave Even me, yes, yes, y'all Who's been so long alone I'm headed home Headed home Nights are getting colder now And the air is getti...

Supposedly it was a wise wise man who said it’s better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all, never to have loved. How many times does the truth that you take to be true Is just truth falling apart at the same speed as you Until it all co...

Tarnished mirror in the hall Reflects the ghosts that come to call Dressed in dusty silken gowns Dancing in the shadowed sounds Eyes like echoes not quite there Should be dead but instead stare Behind me up stairs they bound They're gone when I have tu...

Sunday night, its supper time, the hotel's full and all is fine. You can see that No Vacancy sign from the window of room 39 Monday morning at half past eight, everybody's gone, they left no trace. I sit alone as the day grows late, wait to see your friendly f...

All that love, all those mistakes What else can a poor man make? So I gave up a life of crime I gave it to a friend of mine Something else was on my mind The only ghost I'm haunted by I hear her howling down below Idaho, oh, Idaho Wolves, oh wolves,...

We started looking for you in the darker caves We had a lot of love we thought would light the way We saw the wrecks of buildings and ships that sank in starlight We saw the ghosts of angels that spoke of falls from tremendous heights Don't you leave us i...

And oh, what a thrill it was To be in your arms again And oh, what a thrill it was To be in those arms And all those plans I had, all they did was hold me down Those plans I had, they can't hold me now That I am back In your arms again Every airplane...

Hold me in your arms awhile Hold me in your arms awhile And I will hold you in my arms awhile I will hold you in my arms just a little bit longer Hold me in your mind awhile Hold me in your mind awhile And I will hold you in my mind awhile I will hold...

i go to the parties throw my hands in the air i drink what they pour me the cups of who cares go up in the night sky up in the clouds fly over the houses im looking down joy to the city joy to the streets and joy to you baby, wherever you sleep ton...

All the other girls here are stars You are the northern lights They try to shine in through your curtain You're too close and too bright They try and they try But everything that they do Is the ghost of a trace Of a pale imitation of you I'll be the...

Here we go a-one, two A-one, two, three We heard it over the wires That everybody here was fine But we never even really felt hired So we felt bad, but not that bad We just pressed the chord And started singin' like we'd sung before We got enough sno...

Give me light for my lantern Give me light for my lantern give me light Be the light of my lantern, the light of my lantern, be the light I need the light in my lantern, light in my lantern tonight It's a hungry world out there Even the wind will take a...

The golden ratio the shell The stairs ascending round themselves The trees rustle as if to kneel and listen To the heartbeat of a lark or the lark in my heartbeat The oxygen in priestly green The answers dressed in labyrinthine The telescopes atop the m...

You have chosen dawn to leave Don't bother me while I am sleeping Life continues and though you go out I'll sleep another hour or so Though you think that I am fragile I'm a river and I'll travel on Whether you are here or not You're not the only thing...

Dirt roads and dry land, farming might be the death of me But I can't leave this world behind Debts are not like prison where there's hope of getting free And I can't leave this world behind I've been from here to Lawrence, Kansas Trying to leave my stat...

I met you at a party or on a crowded street A silent singularity when glances chanced to meet You looked into my glasses, said you'd seen a ghost I tried my best to make you smile as we calypsoed close I have been to Cleveland and you have been to jail You see...

Making my own city lights Out of bourbon and the stars of a bar room fight Face forward in the wind If you don't know where it is but you know where it's been Then it's leaving, leaving, leaving but I don't know where Leaving, leaving, leaving but I don'...

Well I can't sleep with all these hand-me-downs Battered up chests and faded dreams Every new life seems to spin away Like sand escaping through the seams Send me a letter from Omaha Said a needle or thread could mend the tears But tonight the cotton fie...

[Verse 1] Gonna build you a cathedral out of nothing but the rafters 'Tween the stars, 'tween stars, 'tween the stars, 'tween the stars From the Tree of Good and Evil bring you fruit of the knowledge It's of your heart, of your heart, of your heart, of you...

I cannot recall when I've felt like this It's been a long, old time if I ever did. So if I act strange, I'm hoping you'll forgive I've got your light I've got your light in my eyes. On some distant moon I lie on my back For a glimpse of blue 'fore it's...

I remember back in Illinois I found her The lily of the valley the lily of the West was a rose The daughter of the biggest big town banker He kept her like a princess, I stole her like the Fort Knox gold She used to pour Four Roses like it was going down...

There was a time I had the right key Rolled the tumbler slid the bolt on every wandering eye I caught But something has changed this is all wrong I'm out here in the cold with a wet face rattling your locks There ain't nothing new about the world That I a...

I'm not afraid of the dark We've been here before Fallen on hard times, honey We've fallen on swords But if a long shadow Falls across your heart I'll be right here with you I'm not afraid of the dark I'm not afraid of the dark When the sun goes down...

dot paths the moonly road when time the crunch of snow i wonder when your smile show 'cause love it's making it's way back home love is making its way back home love is making its way back home love is making it's cold really way back home and when it'...

Dot paths the moonly road when time the crunch of snow i wonder when your smile show ’cause love it’s making it’s way back home love is making its way back home love is making its way back home love is making it’s cold really way back home And when it’s final...

A little rest for a spell A little water from your well A little shade from the shade of your door That is all that I need And I believe those might be The truest words that I've ever said before Hey make me down a pallet on your floor Hey make me down...

Don't stand so close to me Don't be another tragedy I've burned everybody Who had a hand to lend A man burning at both ends No one put me in this hell I lit a fire underneath myself Now I'm blazing the same old trail Back to you again A man burning...

Me and Jiggs staring at the ceiling the stars above the radar range Song from a station wagon laying foundations On the shadows of overpassing planes I'm feeling good, at seven o'clock we're gonna drive across the county line And find Saturday night like a...

Last night it got so hot, I swear Couldn't hardly breathe And heat lightning burnt the sky Like alcohol I sat on the porch without my shoes And I watched the cars roll by As the headlights raced To the corner of the kitchen wall Mama dear, your boy i...

What's it take to make the dime drop? All these kids they think they're quick on the draw Always shootin' at outlaws I'm busy keeping my Colt cocked I'm gonna know you when you finally come 'Cause I got you in my mind's eye I got you in my mind's eye...

Radio waves are coming miles and miles Bringing only empty boats Whatever feeling they had when they sailed Somehow slipped out between the notes Out on the desert now and feeling lost The bonnet wears a wire albatross Monster ballads and the stations o...

There are planets you don't know There are moons that you don't see Invisibles between the rings of Mars and Mercury The harbors that they built for the ships to set us free Sometimes when it's all too much I know they'll come for me, come for me 

Wrap your arms around me And hold me close to your light I'm too weak for flying tonight I've been running all nighttime Trying to hide from the hounds And morning is a long way down I was always the strongest So young and so fast I was always sure th...

Waitin' I've been waitin' For the day, the hour, the moment you'd appear And now just look at you My man on a horse is here Prayin' I been prayin' Though will some say my prayers fall on deaf ears I never doubted you My man on a horse is here Hidee...

How hard for the covers to be pulled by from their slumbers But a ghost never gives up its sheet, tell me is it the same? For the rattlin' chains or whatever you wear when you sleep Do you remember the time I told you to take off your clothes? You were n...

I can't pretend that all is well, it's like I'm haunted by a ghost There are times I cannot speak your name for the catchin' in my throat, There are things I will not sing for the sting of sour notes. I feel like a miser, I feel low and mean For accusing...

He's riding the plains living up to his name As the next to the last true romantic He knows that his story is tragic But he can't rest until he's next to you All the girls know his fame, men curse his name And they talk about him like he's magic But he'...

I know where the nightmares sleep On what fodder do they feed For two long weeks I stayed awake Until I saw one cross your face I knew that you had been untrue I didn't know how but I knew The who you spoke to in your dreams Was never how you spoke to...

Honey how you gonna make it on your own? Honey how you gonna make it on your own? When you wake up in the night and see the stars just city lights You can't find home You act like you don't need nobody else And you dance like you don't need nobody else...

I thought I heard you pulling up outside It's just the wind whispering through the pines I haven't seen who I'm looking for Just empty shadows in my open door The empty closet where you hung your clothes The empty hooks where you hung your coat The cell...

So it was that everything That went to make up everything Was wrapped up tight inside a grain Of great insistence Then someone gave the great command All things paired off for the dance The great to small the small to grand Down to this instant Ooh!...

Say the West is a story we made up to erase Conestoga wagons left tracks you can see from space From the Northwest passage to the Great Divide Everybody's looking for the other side I'm still waiting for the whiskey to whisk me away And I'm still waiting...

Pictures on my wall Fifteen different colors Starting with vermilion The first flower of the summer And don't think I'll be finished Till I've begun to understand this With you stretched out in the sunlight As your laughter fills my canvas The sun fal...

Peter killed the dragon And he did it with his bare hands Peter killed the dragon And he did it with his bare hands Paul killed the dragon And he did it with his bare hands Eight miles high Saw you wearing a royal blue shirt Eight miles high Saw you...

I close my eyes and it all returns Like the spinning of a potter's wheel Trying to stay ahead a morning As time came running with us And she beat us to the finish As we ran through the fields You were born in the city And you didn't recognize me Your...

Pretty Polly, please come on down From your home home high up off the ground In the tree dark and forlorn Where the rope hangs bruised and worn Though I'll never fly to you It's the last thing I would do You have dug two holes so deep I'm afraid that o...

You had your red rainslicker on Your face was turned up into rain as you watched me And I was crossing, I was crossing The street like my own Rubicon Coming back home to ya, coming back Rome And your eyes were so patient and calm And green as the grass...

There was a time I had the right key Rolled the tumbler slid the bolt on every wandering eye I caught But something has changed this is all wrong I'm out here in the cold with a wet face rattling your locks There ain't nothing new about the world That I a...

You're a real mean mama But you got a lotta time for me And I know they ain't coming To find your kinda love for free It's a drag and a sigh and that's not all It's this real long distance, it's the real long distance call Telephone ringing mama Pleas...

All of a sudden now you're back again I thought you were happy with whoever Or did you dream about me now and then? Did you look up at the stars and feel something for the constellations? All those lovers circling round their loves Slings and arrows, dog...

West of her there's a place know Never have been but I'd like to go Somewhere out there I believe in me And West of her is where I'd like to see West of her there's another place Sun shines soft on another face And the river falls on another sea And We...

Serenade me with rocks, love No lullabies through the locks, love I lock myself in with the band But the music's never loud enough Decibels in the belfry Hey, what the hell if it helps me I put a whip to the kick drum But the music's never loud enough...

Please Man ain't suppose to live alone No that ain't what he needs He needs to find a home With someone else who needs a man A man who needs a home Man ain't supposed to live alone Please You can see how man was made He was made to need a home And h...

All around me the shadows of women and men And they all walk right through me And I walk through them Then I cast by my bed I cannot believe that I’m one of the lucky ones You happened to see me through Got trouble on the main mine See me through The...

[Verse 1] Stabbed me once and shot me twice Threw me off of the bridge and through the ice And after all you put me through It seems our champagne days were few [Chorus] But you'll be seein' me around You'll be seein' me around You'll be seein' me aro...

Birds beneath my window dusting their wings upon the lawn I hear them in the morning light giving last amen to a migratory song They're never looking round for me-their eyes are on the sky or the ground below But I'd rather be the one who loves than to be l...

After all the lights had died Out behind the Palasades Park Fireflies remembered to do Exactly what they were supposed to And memories were like coins That tumbled somersaulting through the deep Down every well we threw them in Until they came to the t...

Southern pacific Red, white, and blue Where are we running to? Over the wide plains Over the wide plains Take me to someplace new Remember me Roxy Anne You know she's still lovely Tell her I was on the move The last time you saw me That you only saw...

She's a great actress, and I um, think we met the first time in '73 And she was doin' a little play off-broadway, Ah, Heart of a Dog And there was something different about her, put my finger on it, And ever since that day she's always had a little spot i...

I know the dog days of the summer Have you ten to one outnumbered Seems like everybody up and left And they're not coming back The shadow that you're standing on's still here Sometimes that's all that you can ask And your heart's still beating You're...

Well there's one thing Mama, I think you should know It is not love that makes the flowers grow But a complex electron transfer process known as photosynthesis when chlorophyll reacts with the light of day Since you're gone, the light has gone away Oh...

Where's the queen of my parade? She ain't coming back. The only thing she left me is This appleblossom rag Oh, the appleblossom rag Oh, such sweet refrain Hid underneath the chords, the thorns That cause such awful pain. This new gang's the gang for...

He opens his eyes Falls in love at first sight With the girl in the doorway What beautiful lines Heart full of life After thousands of years, what a face to wake up to He holds back a sigh As she touches his arm She dusts off the bed where til now he'...

I know who you are old man keep running I caught your trail as you left the pines Out into the fields where you couldn't hide nowhere Just a thin stitch up against the rising line And up through the blue I knew the stars were tumbling Up through the blue...

[Verse 1] Change your face Change your name Rip the roots that you laid down Rip the roots that you laid down You'll keep your hurt You'll keep your pain Close company now Close company now [Chorus] Lying wide awake In a different house With diffe...

If this was the Cold War we could keep each other warm I said on the first occasion that I met Marie We were crawling through the hatch that was the missile silo door And I don't think that she really thought that much of me I never had to learn to love her l...

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 Denmark...

Last night I saw Someone with your eyes Someone with your smile Someone with your smile We danced And I regret that she asked me to Cuz she didn't have your arms 

Deep in the belly of a whale I found her Down with the deep blue jail around her Running her hands through the ribs of the dark Florence and Calamity and Joan of Arc I love the way she looks in her underwear I lose the page and the book then the plot the...

Tokyo! I know from all your lightbulbs that you know the real deal when you see it -- if you see it won't you tell me so? Oh we've come too far -- too far to be so far apart. Tokyo! I see by all your lightbulbs that you know that no matter how kind, lo...

I wait for love, I wait for love Wait for love, wait for love, wait for love Wait for love, wait for love I got someone on my mind And she don't make me wait the way you do Time, oh she loves me all the time And she don't make me wait the way you do W...

[Verse 1] Heard the word from Brenda Lee You were coming home she said Cross my heart I could not believe it Holy hell you could have struck me dead but Three cheers for the grapevine what Told me you were coming home [Chorus] Let’s see where the nigh...

Why can't you try to be happy? Why must you always be sad? Why spend your only life waitin' To have what you know you can have? Why spend your only life hopin'? What a torture to be always blue, darlin'. Why spend your only life waiting To do what you...

All that I've learned Sometimes wells run dry It don't matter the hour or the season Gone, gone gone, is your wild goose and it never leaves giving a reason When you're up, you'll be up You'll have love, you'll have luck And when it goes, you won't se...

You must be living on wildfires You must be living on wildfires That's why your eyes Are smoke and ash You must be living on earthquakes You must be living on earthquakes Must be why my heart breaks Every time you pass Oh no matter how I try I just...

At night we crossed the border Following a black robe To the edge of the reservation To Cataldo Mission Where the saints and all the martyrs Look down on dyin' converts What makes the water holy She says is that it's the closest thing to rain I stole...

I still remember that time when we were dancing We were dancing to a song that I'd heard Your face was simple and your hands were naked I was singing without knowing the words But I started listening to the wolves in the timber Wolves in the timber at ni...

Here I am standing at your window again Waiting for you to say go away or come in I'm your locked door's worst knocker I'm your curtain's best friend I'm trying hard to love you, you don't make it easy, babe I'm trying hard to love you, I'm looking for a...

We ate May down to the rind Asked the moon for another helping It's getting on past suppertime Lights are low and it was evening Pull your dress up to your knees Out in the fields we'll go walking Just the tall grass and the trees Silhouettes and crick...

[Verse 1] Lay down, young Moses, child Your wandering star a while Hang your heart on a quiet soul and Stay a while in the house of gold Each room has many mansions; Each mansion many rooms You'll sleep on sheets of silver; You'll eat on plates of moon...