THE GATE AND THE GARDEN

Name: THE GATE AND THE GARDEN
Duration: 208 s
Description: THE GATE AND THE GARDEN by mBaileyz. A folk-parlor argument about who gets to hold the gate. They let the wild ones in for the colour, then teach them not to sting.

A folk-parlor argument about who gets to hold the gate. They let the wild ones in for the colour, then teach them not to sting.

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THE GATE AND THE GARDEN lyrics

Artist-supplied lyric sheet, matched by title. The sheet may differ from this released performance. Production notes and alternate promotional cuts are omitted.

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Verse 1

Ten summers back in a rented hall The floor had a lean you could see on the wall Letters got loose and the chairwoman left By the side door nobody uses The scale had a thumb, I won't say it didn't The papers were warm before the race was run But when they counted it clean, she had won it plain A tilted floor is not a stolen claim

Verse 2

They never burn the wild seed, understand They pot it on the sill where it can't spread They cut the bloom to wear on their lapel And quietly compost the roots to hell They call the killing frost "electability" They call the fence "the way it's always been" And half of them believe it when they say Somebody has to tend it, or the thorns tear it away

Chorus

Who tends the gate tends the garden Who holds the ledger holds the spring They let the wildflowers in for the color Then teach them not to sting Oh, the gate and the garden One hand on both is a dangerous thing

Verse 3

Now it's twenty twenty-six and the rows run red-and-rose Wild ones winning boroughs on a shoestring and expensive clothes An old chair wags a finger at the toolshed Out west a late frost took one all the... anyway The rules got loosened after all that thunder The crowns weigh less than they weighed before But money moves like water finding low ground And the fence gets rebuilt one town over from the war

Chorus

Bridge

Nobody is born a hedge A hedge is a wildflower that won Then got scared of the seeds outside it Hold a gate long enough You forget which side you came in from

Chorus

Who tends the gate tends the garden Who holds the ledger holds the spring They let the wildflowers in for the color Then teach them not to sting Oh, the gate and the garden Someday the wild will be holding that ring

Outro

Tend it open Tend it open Tend it open

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01 / The opening