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lyrics

I’ve been trying to remember the way this story starts
That increases in confusion, goes off the rails in parts,
That catalogues the romance of an idiot savant
Who never can quite manage to decide what it is he wants…
And goes on to lend the details of secret that was kept
So well that all the pieces fail to meaningfully connect…
Who placed her on a pedestal which he named his Stumblingblock
And was the only souvenir he had when he became the laughingstock…

There’s a sign-post lost in ivy at the old fork in the road
One arrow points to nowhere, the other towards the motherload
But the traveler’s in a snowdrift, and he hasn’t yet found out
That the footprints he’s been following are his own, without a doubt
And the carriage-driver’s mumbling, he’s been known for nodding off
I heard he killed a man once who accused him of being lost
but the circle’s ever-widening, every revolution grows
the time it takes for one to realize what everyone already knows…

And still I feel the strange sensation that I’ve had this dream before
because I’m not participating, I’m just the one who’s keeping score
the cups were filled with coffee by the waitress with the pin
who poisons her own lipstick and leaves it showing on the brim
The hallway chatterboxes are all waiting to descend
Upon a service elevator that cannot rise as high as them
The fire on the mountain has gotten kind out of hand
There’s no method to distinguish between the innocent and damned—

The clock’s a double-crosser—else how’d the hour get so late?
And what happened to the lobster that was just resting on my plate?
I didn’t mean to interrupt you—we were somewhere in the meal
Either I was asking you, or you were wondering how I feel—
The bartender looks impatient for the commercials to resume
In the backyard a slumped hound-dog's being howled at by a moon
beneath the porter’s window the station’s leaving from the train
I guess I’m a little empty, kinda lost and scatterbrained…

I’ve been to see the barber at the dark end of the cave
You can tell when he’s been drinking by the closeness of his shave
There’s a headstone in the parlor, it’s been leaning gainst the stairs
I’m afraid I’ll turn it over and find my own name written there
I climbed up on my ladder for to call on you again
But the candle’s always burning in the room you’re never in
Have you ever been so lonely that you shattered into song
And felt you’d found a place at last where you could just belong?

credits

from Unravelled Tales - Volume 1, released March 5, 2021

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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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