You've got a pair of beat-up boots and they have always served you well
The heels they pound the graveyard ground like somnolence of chapel bells
Their leather tongues are flapping full of stories they could tell
And their solid soles know all the words to every ballad of farewell
When summer hail is fallin' down or drums are beating out a poem
You can't help but imagine Kansas and the last days you were home
You buzz around the thought of flight like bees around a honeycomb
And lucid dream all through the night, yeah deep in sleep you're free to roam
Yes in your sleep the lines are crossed
And cliffs were made for jumping off
And everything is open for creation
Spontaneous creation
Like combustion
Like an engine
Like a Bible
A set of wheels
A lifetime seeking vengeance for
A murder that you never saw
Your father's word become your law
Your world become a midnight '67 Chevy Impala
Watch your brother's back
Traverse the highways of America
You think that you're a lonely man
You're not alone, you're stronger than
Believing we would let you go in just a year
With all the blows that you have braved
And all the people you have saved
You just can't disappear into thin air
You can't just disappear
You can hear a blackbird singing or perhaps a raven crying
From the woven roof of branches as they frame the jaundiced sun's decline
You raise your head and bless the dead and it is purifying
You know that we're all revenants, of that there's no denying
Sometimes you think the time has come to ditch your car and hop a train
Where you can lean your shoulder on somebody else's windowpane
The tug and pull that's troubling you will cease to cause a strain
And the tensions of the tawdry world will shiver off like consecrated rain
Yes consecrated words ring true
Your brother's voice will pull you through
And every road is just as good as being there
Your brother's life is not worth more
But goddamn it's worth fighting for
And all your love and all your life has led you there
You think that you're a lonely man
You're not alone, you're stronger than
Believing we would let you go in just a year
With all the knives that you have thrown
And all the lives that you have known
You can't just disappear into thin air
You can't just disappear
With all the blows that you have braved
And all the lives that you have saved
You can't just disappear into thin air
You can't just disappear