Liner Notes Lyrics - Rickie Lee Jones

Now the birds speak in secret rhythms 

and the trees bark in secret sounds 

and the people speak in secret thought 

and they push the thoughts into the shape of words 

and sometimes someone among us 

sticks her head into the 

shiny phosphorus blue vat 

of language 

and listens, like a skeleton 

to the pulsing of life within, 

and she tells us 

of secret rattling angles 

to watch for and to reach into 

with strange oceans 

and deafening skies 

that can be mapped and measured 

only by sounds 

and never by meanings 

and once we can tell where we are 

using the nearest star 

as it relates to the ragged water 

then we can plant our feet into the good ground 

and go to the rodeo 

and answer the plum-colored hawk 

and sing to the river 

in good faith 

god presses his mouth 

around our head 

he breathes out 

he breathes in 

and we are resuscitated in the goofy 

atmosphere of god 

where there are highways and bowling 

and tattooed by the sun 

a circus 

made by the prayer of breathing 

and living hope 

and barbed eyes 

where coyotes hang 

and cowboys hammer 

posts and branches 

to keep us inside 

as much as keep someone out 

and the prayer that is 

and it is answered with a breath 

gods lips against our own 

we breathe in 

we breathe out 

he breathes out 

and sigh 

alive again 

the unexpected 

discovery 

of a b-side 

of life 

a map of voices 

a warning to others who would come this way 

an animal who has seen things 

a horn twisted into shapes 

understood by strangers 

recognized by demons 

an invitation in 

the secret language of trees 

sung in wild shapes 

by a child