The Middle Ages

Album: The Things That We Are Made Of (2016)
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  • Looking back is not the same as looking forward
    You can't see what it is you're heading toward
    All that's visible is what's left behind
    The dreams distilled and the dreams discarded
    What made you leap or left you empty hearted
    In the moment and in the fullness of time

    Now you see what it is that you would have changed if only you'd known
    Where you'd be and to be here is very strange waking up alone
    In the middle ages

    All along you paid close attention
    To the answers when a voice asked the question
    How'd you get here, where do you belong
    17 makes us brave and so full of nerve
    35 makes us pause but we're undeterred
    Never say die and so we push on

    And some come to a place of reckoning try to fix what they find
    I arrived with the questions still beckoning in the back of my mind
    To the middle ages

    Now you bitch about your job what's wrong with folks today
    The price of gas and milk and the guy who begs for change
    He's camped out at the light you hide behind your shades
    And will the green to flash to speed your getaway
    You're racing to keep up or just to be on time
    That's what you tell yourself when the emptiness inside
    Threatens to break out clouding up your eyes you just have to pull over

    We used to dread lives rendered ordinary
    We always said we'd own a grander story
    But the only kind worth telling somehow
    Is the one about a jolt that makes you listen
    That jagged lightning bolt of recognition
    That love and kindness are all that matter now

    And way back in the back of your mind you heard something getting through
    Like some beautiful passage without words welcoming you to the middle ages Writer/s: Mary Chapin Carpenter
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

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