It’s a big fat cheat to use another creative’s words. But when they are better than your own, when they say all the things you are too afraid to say at the moment, you let them carry you. Thank you, Joan Shelley and Carter Sickels — Carter, without you I would never have found this song.
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A spring remembered, the taste of gin
An island light upon our skin
Your form it lingers, I trace just where you’ve been
The songs we sang I’ll sing again
When it breaks down
Oh, babe, let’s try
To see the beauty in all the fading
I saw the river thick with mud
Break through the banks and run
And I confess I liked it, I cheered the flood
When the waters hit the walls and won
When it breaks down
Oh, babe, let’s try
To see the beauty in all the fading
The roads are endless, they seem to grow
Vines that wind around the world
And though I hate it to leave my home
I love that car when I need to go
When it breaks down
Oh, babe, let’s try
To see the beauty in all the fading
And old Kentucky stays in my mind
It’s sweet to be five years behind
That’s where I’ll be when the seas rise
Holding my dear friends and drinking wine
When it breaks down
Oh, babe, let’s try
To see the beauty in all the fading
When it breaks down
When the stakes get high
To see the beauty in all the fading
Joan Shelley, The Fading