The Word in the Tree

Lyrics by Dakota Vale

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[Verse 1: solo guitar, fingerpicked, slow, barely there - like someone playing in the next room] You did most of my remembering for me the catalog of what I've done stored in your voice stored in your hands I don't know where July went but you were there so it must have happened

[Chorus: guitar swells slightly, still solo, still quiet - the vocal doesn't rise, it deepens] Things disappear from the island birds fly off and the sky forgets rose petals cover the river and the river forgets it had a surface but I remember I remember I'm the one they come for

[Verse 2: same guitar, same room, but the chord has shifted - minor to major and back] There's a word hanging in a tree by the school it was harder work than they imagined the boys who cut it whistling as they washed their large hands but the word sang all night and the song was sweet and the heart dies of this sweetness

[Chorus: slightly louder - a second guitar enters, far away, like an echo] Things disappear from the island the photograph fades and the frame forgets the harmonica rusts and the mouth forgets but I remember I remember I'm the one they take away

[Bridge: instruments drop to just the vocal and one note, sustained, like a room tone] I made the album in your room I used your picks I wrote on your paper I looked over and said hi and you were off to the side and you didn't answer but the picks were there the paper was there the room was there

[Verse 3: guitar returns, but different - raw, slightly overdriven, then cleaned] She named the goat Broken Thorn Sweet Blackberry after the night's bush of stars because its hair was dark as well water because it had eyes like wild fruit she dreamed it bigger and it grew she thought her dreaming made it so and then one morning empty yard the goat was gone

[Outro: just vocal, no guitar, then guitar entering for the last line] Things disappear from the island but where do they go not gone - somewhere else into the tree into the box into the room into the picks into the song

The song is sweet it is sweet the heart dies of this sweetness

[End: one chord, barely struck, fading to room tone]