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Words from the artist’s archive
Two points 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
My grandmother said it like grace at Thanksgiving Two presidents falling, a hundred years apart The secretaries wearing one another's names The theater and the warehouse trading parts Half of it borrowed, all of it gospel She tapped the table twice like knocking on wood A list of two is just a line, my darling And a line only points, you wait for the third
Chorus
Two points only make a line And a line just points away Three points close the figure in And a triangle remains Hold on, What it's been carrying Hold on, Down the years, down the days Don't you call it finished Wait for the third Wait
Verse 2
Then in my lifetime, right on the hundred Seven letters took the oath, like the seven gone before Her secretary begged her, cancel Chicago Nobody ever listens to the secretary anymore A playhouse with a borrowed name, in the bones of a motor plant On a Friday afternoon the pendulum swung out once more They found him in a warehouse, and he never saw a courtroom Three of them, three tries, no verdict, like before
Chorus
Two points only make a line And a line just points away Three points close the figure in And a triangle remains Hold on, What it's been carrying Hold on, Down the years, down the days Don't go calling it finished Wait for the third Wait
Verse 3
It isn't just the presidents, she told me The money runs the figure, and the music, and the call An island, flights, a mailing list, then no one left to point to First the seed, and then the water, then the yield The first line we ever sent said, come here, I want to see you The second one said, I'm here, to anyone at all The third one had no words in it, she stood up from her chair And walked the hallway whispering, are you there
Verse 4
They pinned the three cities to a map of the country And the center of the triangle came down on Kentucky clay On the hills where the first one was born in a cabin Like the pattern walked two hundred years for a place to stay And here's the question that she left on the table The one that kept her up more than the list ever could Did history repeat itself, I wonder Or did a hundred years of us reciting teach somebody how to I learned it like a prayer at my grandmother's table And God help me, it's the prayer I'm passing now
Chorus
Two points only make a line And a line just points away Three points close the figure in And a triangle contains Hold on, What it's been carrying Hold on, Down the years, down the days I won't call it finished Wait for the third point Wait
Outro
Coincidence, of course It's only ever coincidence That's what they said the second time, too Wait for the third point
Inside the recording
My grandmother said it like grace at Thanksgiving Two presidents falling, a hundred years apart
Two points only make a line And a line just points away
Coincidence, of course It's only ever coincidence
Excerpts from artist-supplied lyric files matched by title. Lyric sheets may differ from the released performance.