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I Wanna Go Home

from Wet Match by Sam Steffen

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lyrics

Just a traveler—on a road
Making good time; making head-way to nowhere at all
Left my footprints—where it snowed
That’s as good as any farewell letter I could scrawl
I mouthed the words I could not say—as tho I thought I could undo
The choice to stand and stay remains—tho it is I who have now forsaken you
An empty feelin burns me through—I can’t waiver
I can’t linger in this moment anymore
With midnight stealing into blue—my whole horizon
Is disappearing in a sudden blur
I rapped upon the frosted glass—wherein my gaunt reflection shone
When I climbed in the cabbie asked—“Where have you been,
but first, tell me where you goin?”
CHORUS: I wanna go home—home—
Home—that’s where I wanna go

Breakfast table—a broken plate, mama’s bathrobe
Dragging dirty round her ankles on the floor
A stream of boxcars hauling freight, and November
coming early and unwelcome through the door
I woke up inside a bus that had carved all night to make it through a storm
I’s just in time to see the fog rise up from out of the Pennsylvania corn
No tomorrows—in this town
Just a motel with its neon flashing “Vacant” in the cold
must be shrinking—these things down
in my memory, either that or else I’m just getting old
I found a sign that read “free meal” and pressed upon a door to see
I nearly cried when the waitress come and asked me: Son, what’ll it be?

CHORUS

I been to Nashville, outer space, Oklahoma
Now I’m sitting in my Philadelphia room
Trying to read things I’ve erased, or written over
Or told myself I’d reckon pretty soon—
Barring not that I should fail, still I—have struggled to resist
the thought that where I’m trying to land may well not even exist
Life’s a strange sort of museum—full of routines
Full of desperate efforts catapulting loss
So many visions—you can’t believe em—til its too late
Til your faith wears the same odor as exhaust
I clicked my heels three times and prayed—to a God I could not see
I stamped and addressed myself so the postman would know exactly where to deliver me

CHORUS

Just a traveler on a road making good time; making headway to nowhere at all

credits

from Wet Match, released October 13, 2019

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Sam Steffen Boise, Idaho

Sam Steffen is a Pennsylvania-bred, Boise-based singer-songwriter whose songs are the torch-wood for a new generation of folk music that has learned from the best stuff in the tradition and aims in spite of everything to keep the human spirit alive and kicking. A versatile musician and skilled finger-picker, Sam is at heart a story-teller, and a prolific one. ... more

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