A Bit Melancholy Today

Recently I posted a link to this song. I am finding it to be of continued great poetic value, and today since I am feeling a bit melancholy, and in the mood to hear it, I thought I might as well actually post the lyrics.

Death took the husband of a neighbor of mine,
on a highway, with a drunk at the wheel.
She told me "Keep your clean hands off the laundry he left,
and don't tell me you know how I feel."
She had a tape that he sent her from a Holiday Inn,
and she never played it much in the day.
But when I heard him say he loved her through the window at night,
I just stayed the hell away.

CHORUS
There is a hole in the middle of the prettiest life,
so the lawyers and the profits say.
Not your father, nor your mother, nor your lover
is going to ever make it go away.
And there is too much darkness in an endless night
to be afraid of the way we feel.
Let's be kind to each other,
not forever, but for real.

My father never put his parachute on
in the Pacific back in World War Two.
He said he'd rather go down in familiar flames,
then get lost in that endless blue.
And some of that blue got into my eyes,
and we never stopped fighting that war.
Until I first understood about endlessness,
and I loved him like never before.

(CHORUS)

It's lucky that my daughter got her mother's nose,
and just a little of her father's eyes.
And we've got just enough love that when the longing takes me,
well it takes me by surprise.
And I remember that longing from my highway days,
though I never could get away.
It's lucky I decided in the knick of time
that the woman and the child aren't to blame.

Oh the hole in the middle of a pretty good life,
I only face it 'cause it's here to say.
Not my father, nor my mother, nor my daughter,
nor my lover, nor the highway made it go away.
And there is too much darkness in an endless night,
to be ashamed by the way I feel.
I'll be kind to my loved ones,
not forever but for real.

Some say that God is lover,
some say its an endless void.
Some say both, and some say she's angry,
and some say just annoyed.
But if God has a hammer in the palm of his hand,
then God knows the way we feel.
And love lasts forever,
forever and for real.
Love lasts forever.

--Bob Franke