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One Sky 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
The world used to fit inside his moods She read low fronts forming in the set of a jaw Mapped rooms by their exits, kept herself small So the worst of the weather might pass over and go Now the world's enormous, and she don't trust it yet A car door slams, her heart goes up in her throat But nothing follows. No boots. No name said like a curse. Just quiet being quiet. One safe minute at a time.
Chorus
One sky over all of us And nobody reads it alike Some see handwriting, some see weather Some map the room by the exits at night Somebody says there's a front coming in And a raised hand is only a wave, most of the time One sky, depends who's underneath it
Verse 2
He sees signature in the frame of a sparrow's wing In the six a.m. angle through the kitchen glass The world to him's a letter that is not done being written And the stranger at the crosswalk carries something built to last It never made the burying easy, he has prayed Into silences that stayed silent, and stayed But he figures the silence is leaning in to listen So he moves like his father's house: owns nothing, known in every room
Verse 3
No author on the page, and it don't go empty for him It goes precious, nothing's circling back to restore So look now, love now, say the thing out loud now A father jogging behind a wobbling bike: open defiance Meaning isn't found, he'd tell you, it gets built Plank by plank out over the void, braver than any hymn He expects nothing after this, and that's exactly why The smell of rain this afternoon nearly leveled him
Chorus
One sky over all of us And nobody reads it alike Some see handwriting, some see weather Some map the room by the exits at night Somebody says there's a front coming in And a raised hand is only a wave, most of the time One sky, depends who's underneath it
Verse 4
He watches the world like an aquarium All that color and motion, sealed behind glass People run like clockwork to him: open one up And the mystery turns out to be gears He waves to the mailman on schedule, laughs On the beat in the break room, never early, never late Nobody notices the glass, or how it all arrives Muffled, half a second delayed Lately there's a hum underneath his days, a patience With a direction in it, he calls it weather coming in While the rest keep checking the sky and seeing nothing at all
Verse 5
Night shift, the world arrives one gurney at a time And the doors don't ask who deserves to come through She has held the hand of a woman whose story Came out a little too rehearsed. She didn't push. She knew. Watched an atheist pray and a deacon curse God In the same waiting room, inside the same hour And decided both men were telling it straight She has seen everything hands can do - Hands that hurt, hands that fold, hands that build Hands she catches herself looking at twice The world isn't good and it isn't evil, it's three a.m. And somebody needs her. She believes in pressure Applied to the wound. All the rest is commentary.
Chorus
One sky over all of us And nobody reads it alike Some see handwriting, some see weather Some map the room by the exits at night Somebody says there's a front coming in And a raised hand is only a wave, most of the time One sky, depends who's underneath it
Outro
One sky.
Inside the recording
The world used to fit inside his moods She read low fronts forming in the set of a jaw
One sky over all of us And nobody reads it alike
One sky.
Excerpts from artist-supplied lyric files matched by title. Lyric sheets may differ from the released performance.