Well if I had a fiddle, and if I could play it well The sound of my a-fiddling would ring out like a bell No I’d never stop my fiddling, not morning noon nor night I’d play it beneath the stormy clouds, out beneath the stars so bright Well if I had a fiddle, and if I could play it good I’d play it on the city streets, I’d play it in the woods I’d play it at a party right till the police came And if my fingers started to bleed, I’d keep playing just the same Yeah if I had a fiddle, and a fancy car besides I’d go and find my fancy girl and I’d take her for a ride We’d stop by Hunter’s Hillside and we’d stroll up to the top And there I’d play my fiddle for her till she asked me please to stop Yeah if I had a fiddle, and if I had a lass I’d drive her down the road a piece until we run out of gas And I’d play that fiddle for her till we got a ride back to town And if she offered me a kiss, well I’d throw that fiddle down But I do not have a fiddle, and I do not have a bow Just a ’96 Tacoma and a heart that loves you so And I hope that you’ll accept me, and if you won’t, well, you can bet I’ll be a-heading down to the music store to buy me a drum set

From the moment I first took an alpine taste I knew that my first eighteen years had been a waste I resolved in phrases strong I’d be heading for the West each time the days were getting long Well, soon eight thousand feet up I did stand And within half an hour I had a hammer in my hand We would work, and we would play And we would sing around the fire at the closing of the day Our Rocky Mountain home It wasn’t built of wood and it wasn’t built of stone It was built of our intention, our intention was to roam There was no holding on to our Rocky Mountain home In the morning, spirits rise up from the lake Yes, and sometimes in the morning our leave we’d have to take Though those departures saw me broken and bereft I knew I’d never write a song if I never left Our Rocky Mountain home It wasn’t built of wood and it wasn’t built of stone It was built of all our youthfulness, as soon as we had grown We had a place no longer in our Rocky Mountain home Yes, each time cool and wan September came Yes, each time the feeling was more or less the same I could run, but I couldn’t hide From the future that awaited me across the great divide Our Rocky Mountain home It wasn’t built of wood and it wasn’t built of stone It was built of all our longings, and once our oats were sown We had a use no longer for our Rocky Mountain home It was built of our ambition, our ambition was to roam No, there was no holding on to our Rocky Mountain home

You take a train, I’ll take a bus You take the we, I’ll take the us And we will go downtown To a place that you are bound to already know You take a stroll, I’ll take a walk You take the chatter and I’ll take the talk Forget about that summer by the sea And I’ll forget that little thing she said to me All of our stale mythos We cannot take it with us everywhere we go Oh, the silences where all our steps are shown Oh, the silences that love, love lets alone So you take a right, I’ll take a left You take the weight, I’ll take the heft And we’ll both take the long way home Yeah, we’ll both take the long way home Oh, the silences when we slip inside Oh, the silences that love, love lets us elide So you take a holiday, I’ll take a trip You take a jump, I’ll take a skip And we’ll both take the long way home Yeah, we’ll both take the long way home Yeah, we’ll both take the long way home

First time I laid sight on you I was only passing through Heading for Los Angeles, we had a ways to go Though I was dressed like such a louse We drove up to the opera house Asked if they had any student tickets for the show Santa Fe, Santa Fe, why must you look at me that way? Santa Fe, you know that I will not be long to stay To lighten up that Verdi load We walked up and down Canyon Road Stopped into a bar where I began to understand Why I’d never dug the party scene Felt adrift and in between ‘cause I would be much happier up singing with the band At high noon, all the bells will ring At eight o’clock the choir sings In between, the plaza is the place for staying cool Rugged pilgrims off the trail We were looking to check our email Meet your friend at the Cowgirl for a couple rounds of pool I was up at dawn that next day A cup of coffee, I was on my way Heading for Colorado, didn’t know what did await I had not seen the sunlight change Between a volcano and a mountain range Or felt the mystery behind your monastery gate I came back by for a music fair Saw one of my old teachers there I said “I liked your piece” and he said “yeah, the same to you” He’d rented a Mustang, slick and red He offered me a ride I said I was getting into meditation, he said “yeah, I have been too” After that I wandered for a while Kicking around for a desert smile Stopping by for a beer, a Topo Chico, and a hang Felt like I was between gears Resting on the cresting of the years Waiting for when inevitability rang That first house was too big for us Its old bones made too much fuss Although we loved the sunsets and the Sangres and the snow We were made quite quickly to believe By that frosty New Year’s Eve There was only one place that we could go Now we live just down the hill Where summer afternoons hang still But I’ll take the train up now and then to have a look At your tourists bored on the ancient street Pinyons yawning at the feet Of mountains posing pretty like a coffee table book

Torn out from a notebook from a Japanese bookstore What perfect points and angles, what a plangent metaphor It will fly, it will fall It’ll brush the sky, it’ll hit the wall And the note that it carried across the dark land Between then and now, from around the bend It says, “greetings, friend” It says that all the record stores will close It says, the ones you think of now, well, they will not be those That you will write, that you will call You’ll brush the sky and you’ll hit the wall And it says, Michigan is covered with trees Cherry orchards, blossoms and bees And craft breweries Look up from the letter with a grin You’ve no way to decode or discern the things therein Only time will tell Like a sorcerer’s spell That takes a whole lifetime to cast From the forests of the past Yes, it says the lakeshore is piled with dunes White under peninsular moons You’ll see them soon

I came upon it before dawn It was when the night was absolute The gate was open, I’d been hoping For an alternate route Where I could run, where I could ride Where I could leave my things outside Neatly laid in dappled shade Where beautiful wildflowers roll and rivers stroll You came knocking, You’d been rocking all your troubles to sleep The door admitted you, you’d acquitted yourself true, You carried nothing fit to keep Now you can run, now you can ride Now that you left your things outside Where aspens abound In the soughing sound Of breezes brushing the trees’ fineries John Cage’s and James Joyce’s whispered voices Come creeping along the fence They want back in, they went out for a spin, They make no excuses and no sense They only run, they only ride They only left some clues outside In the pines, where wooden signs Weathered by the wind and rain Still remain