Butchered Tongue

[Intro]
Bm D Gmaj7
 
[Verse 1]
     Bm               D
As a child it was the place names
        Gmaj7
Singin' at me as the first thing
        Bm              A               F#m
How the mouth must be employed in every corner of itself
        G      D                                Gmaj7
To say "Appalacicola" or "Hushpukena", like "Gweebarra"
  Em             A                 D
A promise softly sung of somewhere else
 
 
[Chorus]
         G                                      Bm
And as a young man blessed to pass so many road signs
            G                            A                 F#m
And have my foreign ear made fresh again on each unlikely sound
            G               D          Bm             F#m
But feel at home, hearin' a music that few still understand
            Em                   A                      D
A butchered tongue still singin' here above the ground
 
 
[Verse 2]
    Bm                     D                G
The ears were chopped from young men if the pitch cap didn't kill them
         Bm             A                      F#m
They are buried without scalp in the shattered bedrock of our home
        G               D
You may never know your fortune
          G                 Em                    A
Until the distance has been shown between what is lost forever
                      D
And what can still be known
 
 
[Chorus]
            G                                  Bm
So far from home to have a stranger call you, "Darling"
              G                              A               F#m
And have your guarded heart be lifted like a child up by the hand
          G                   D
In some town that just means 'Home' to them
             Bm            F#m
With no translator left to sound
            Em                   A              D
A butchered tongue still singin' here above the ground
 
Bm D Gmaj7 F#m
Bm D Gmaj7 Bm