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Ugly Mother
(Joe Stevens)
Originally recorded on Boxes & Bags

I wear my body like the finest leather
Worn down through years and years of snow
And the desert wind, and the sand and the sun blown like
Bees in a blanket, all around they go

I wear my heart like a shining locket
On a glittering chain that’s hung there on my chest
So everybody knows it’s there, I got one
But what’s inside is anyone’s guess

I wear my mind like a face on a chess piece
Like a room full of clocks, they’re all keeping they’re own time
For centuries of life to remember, like a room
To a door, to a lock, to a key of mine

CHORUS:
But have you seen
Me lately?


I bear my soul like a raging river
Like the turn of the tide that moors boats on the shore
Like a butterfly going round in the garden, like the
Curl of a snake tail in the grass by the garden door

I bear my love like a knife gone sheathless
With an ivory handle wrapped tight in a fist
Like a make believe, like a sleepy blue ocean
Like the call of coyotes with eyes wide and gleaming, they insist

[CHORUS]

I bear myself like a baby born on a Sunday
Like a hungry runaway who’s been running his whole life
Like a MacIntyre, roll on down the highway,
Don’t stop on no byway, don’t keep me no wife

Like a long lost love letter
Like the rain getting wetter
Like a so long, like an old song
Like a trailer 'round the east pond
Like a cannon ball from the morning
Like a shipwreck, like a warning
A slow ride from the West side
Like the whole goddamn ferry ride
To an island right before the world ends
And a train coming round the west bend
Saying, ain’t you coming to the old place?
Ain’t you flying up around the powerlines?
Calling to me from the morning, through the clouds
And the birds and the trees and the sky, I fly
And the wineyards stretching out before me
And the barns and the hills and the tracks and the case
People living all over the place and a lover
Kissing all over the face, and the laughing
And the crying and the singing and the trying and the dying
And the wise, wise, wise old eyes
Earth, and the stars, and the sky

Well, who am I?
Who am I?
Who am I?


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