History of Us

Why was this song on my Indigo Girls playlist for so long and I never found it?! Gosh, sappy love songs again (how embarassing).

It just struck me that You like to ask me, "Are you sure?" I say something seriously, and the moment I am not in jest, the moment something is controversial, the moment you hear something I say that you were wishing to hear you ask me, "Are you sure?"

Gosh... who writes these songs? If I could meet her just to hear a sound.

I wonder if You knew just how much it struck me just as it struck her. Or would it just be something that You claim not to understand?

History of Us
I went all the way to Paris to forget your face
Captured in stained glass, young lives long since passed
Statues of lovers every place
I went all across the continent to relieve this restless love
I walked through the ruins, icons of glory
Smashed by the bombs from above

So we must love while these moments are still called today
Take part in the pain of this passion play
Stretching our youth as we must, until we are ashes to dust
Until time makes history of us

Jeu de paume’s full of faces knowing peace, knowing strife
Leisure and toil, still it’s canvas and oil
There’s just no medium for life
In the midst of the rubble I felt a sense of rebirth
In a dusty cathedral the living God called
And I prayed for my life here on earth

So we must love while these moments are still called today
Take part in the pain of this passion play
Stretching our youth as we must, until we are ashes to dust
Until time makes history of us

There are mountains in Switzerland, brilliant cold as they stand
From my hotel room, watching the half-moon
Bleeding it’s light like a lamb
And the town is illumined, it’s tiny figures are fast asleep
And it dawns on me the time is upon me
To return to the flock I must keep

So we must love while these moments are still called today
Take part in the pain of this passion play
Stretching our youth as we must, until we are ashes to dust
Until time makes history of us


And another one that is so poetic... Language or the Kiss

I don’t know if it was real or in a dream
Lately waking up I’m not sure where I’ve been
There was a table set for six and five were there
I stood outside and kept my eyes upon that empty chair

And there was steam on the windows from the kitchen
Laughter like a language I once spoke with ease
But I’m made mute by the virtue of decision
And I choose most of your life goes on without me
Oh the fear I’ve known
That I might reap the praise of strangers
And end up on my own
All I’ve sown was a song but maybe I was wrong

I said to you the one gift which I’d adore
The package of the next 10 years unfolding
But you told me if I had my way I’d be bored
Right then I knew I loved you best born of your scolding

When we last talked we were lying on our backs
Looking at the sky through the ceiling
I used to lie like that alone out on the driveway
Trying to read the greek upon the stars
The alphabet of feeling
Oh I knew back then
It was a calling that said if joy then pain
The sound of the voice these years later
Is still the same?

I am alone in a hotel room tonight
I squeeze the sky out but there’s not a star appears
Begin my studies with this paper and this pencil
And I’m working through the grammar of my fears
Oh mercy what I won’t give
To have the things that mean the most
Not to mean the things I miss
Unforgiving the choice still is
The language or the kiss