After All

Album: The Green World (2000)
Play Video
  • Go ahead push your luck
    Find out how much love the world can hold
    Once upon a time I had control and reined my soul in tight

    Well the whole truth
    Is like the story of a wave unfurled
    But I held the evil of the world
    So I stopped the tide froze it up from inside
    And it felt like
    A winter machine that you go through and then
    You catch your breath and winter starts again
    And everyone else is spring bound

    And when I chose to live
    There was no joy it's just a line I crossed
    It wasn't worth the pain my death would cost
    So I was not lost or found
    And if I was to sleep

    I knew my family had more truth to tell
    And so I traveled down a whispering well
    To know myself through them

    Growing up my mom had a room full of books
    And hid away in there
    Her father raging down a spiral stair
    Till he found someone, most days his son

    And sometimes I think
    My father, too, is a refugee
    I know they tried to keep their pain from me
    They could not see what it was for
    But now I'm sleeping fine

    Sometimes the truth is like a second chance
    I am the daughter of a great romance
    And they are the children of the war

    Well, the sun rose
    With so many colors it nearly broke my heart
    It worked me over like a work of art
    And I was a part of all that

    So go ahead push your luck
    Say what it is you gotta say to me
    We will push on into that mystery
    And it will push right back
    And there are worse things than that
    'Cause for every price
    And every penance that I could think of
    It's better to have fallen in love
    Than never to have fallen at all

    'Cause when you live in a world
    Well it gets in to who you thought you'd be
    And now I laugh at how the world changed me
    I think life chose me
    After all Writer/s: Dar Williams
    Publisher: BMG Rights Management, CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 1

  • Joanne from UsI love this song and it speaks to me so profoundly. I think Dar really captures the darkness of depression as well as the transition out of that darkness into the light of life. Such a beautiful tender song!
see more comments

Editor's Picks

American Hits With Foreign Titles

American Hits With Foreign TitlesSong Writing

What are the biggest US hits with French, Spanish (not "Rico Suave"), Italian, Scottish, Greek, and Japanese titles?

Pam Tillis

Pam TillisSongwriter Interviews

The country sweetheart opines about the demands of touring and talks about writing songs with her famous father.

Mike Scott of The Waterboys

Mike Scott of The WaterboysSongwriter Interviews

The stories behind "Whole Of The Moon" and "Red Army Blues," and why rock music has "outlived its era of innovation."

Kelly Keagy of Night Ranger

Kelly Keagy of Night RangerSongwriter Interviews

Kelly Keagy of Night Ranger tells the "Sister Christian" story and explains why he started sweating when he saw it in Boogie Nights.

Steely Dan

Steely DanFact or Fiction

Did they really trade their guitarist to The Doobie Brothers? Are they named after something naughty? And what's up with the band name?

AC/DC

AC/DCFact or Fiction

Does Angus really drink himself silly? Did their name come from a sewing machine? See if you can spot the real stories about AC/DC.