Josh Ritter - Thin Blue Flame (acoustic) lyrics

I became a thin blue flame Polished on a mountain range And over hills and fields I flew Wrapped up in a royal blue I flew over Royal City last night Bullfighter on the horns of a new moon light Caesar's ghost I saw the war-time tides The prince of Denmark's father still and quiet The whole world was looking to get drowned Trees were a fist shaking themselves at the clouds I looked over curtains - it was then that I knew That only a full house gonna make it through I became a thin blue wire That held the world above the fire And so it was I saw behind Heaven's just a thin blue line If God's up there he's in a cold dark room The heavenly host are just the cold dark moons He bent down and made the world in seven days And ever since he's been a-walking away Mixing with nitrogen in lonely holes Where neither seraphim or raindrops go I see an old man wandering the halls alone But only a full house gonna make a home And I became a thin blue stream The smoke between asleep and dreams And in that clear blue undertow Saw Royal City far below Borders soft with refugees Streets a-swimming with amputees It's a Bible or a bullet they put over your heart It's getting harder and harder to tell them apart The days are nights and the nights are long Beating hearts blossom into walking bombs And those still looking in the clear blue sky for a sign Get missiles from so high they might as well be divine And now the dogs are howling at your door Singing 'bout vengeance like it's the joy of the Lord Bringing justice to the enemies not the other way round They're guilty where k**ed and they're k**ed where they're found If what's loosed on earth will be loosed up on high It's a Hell of a Heaven we must go to when we die Where even Laurel begs Hardy for vengeance please The fat man's crying on his hands and his knees Back in the peacetime he caught roses on the stage Now he twists indecision, takes bourbon for rage Lead pellets peppering aluminium Halcyon, laudanum and opium Sings kiss thee Hardy this poisoned cup His winding sheet is busy winding up In darkness he looks for the lights that've died You need faith for the same reasons that it's so hard to find And this whole thing is headed for a terrible wreck And like good tragedy that's what we expect At night I make plans for a city laid down The hips of a girl on the spring-covered ground Spirals and capitals in the twists of a script Streets named for heroes that could almost exist Fruit trees from Eden and the gardens that seem To float like the smoke from a lithium dream Cedar trees growing in the cool of the squares Young women walking in the portals of prayer The future gla** buildings and the past an address The weddings in pollen and the wine bottomless And all wrongs forgotten and all vengeance made right The suffering verbs put to sleep in the night The future descending like a bright chandelier The world just beginning and the guests in good cheer In Royal City I fell into a trance 'Cause it's hell to believe there ain't a hell of a chance I woke beneath a clear blue sky The sun a shout, the breeze a sigh The old home town and the streets I knew Wrapped up in a royal blue I heard my friends laughing out across the fields The girls in the gloaming and the birds on the wheel The raw smell of horses and the warm smell of hay Cicadas electric in the heat of the day A run of Three Sisters and the flush of the land And the lake was a diamond in the valley's hand The straight of the highway and the scattered-out hearts They were coming together, they were pulling apart And angels everywhere were in that midst In the ones that I loved, in the ones that I kissed I wondered what it was I'd been looking for above Heaven's so big there ain't no need to look up So I stopped looking for royal cities in the air Only a full house gonna have a prayer Only a full house Only a full house