From the recording Surviving the Echoes

Lyrics

I told my lover, “You got nothing on me”
She just smiled and said, “In a year we’ll see”
So I left her beneath the apple tree
Where she’d carved her name by mine
Then I grabbed my things and headed out west
Where no trees can grow, just scrubs at best
But for some reason her locket’s still on my chest
And it reads “forever thine”

Now, who’s to say what the winter will bring
I ain’t so I’ll even see the spring
Nothing echoes when I try to sing
You can see forever but you can’t see a thing

Out here the sun’s the only thing that’s high
It burns so hot each night it blackens the sky
That ain’t the wind, it’s just the prairie’s sigh
As it exhales the word “she”
Now chasing pleasures is a lonely game
And freedom, well, she kind of works the same
If someone were here then I’d have someone to blame
But for now this one’s on me

I’m scared to death of what the winter could bring
Odds are I won’t even make the spring
An empty kingdom and a lonely king
You can see forever but you can’t see a thing

This land is void of sight and sound... (Listen close and you will hear...)
But in your head the memories pound... (More than just the things you fear...)
I survived the echoes but my ears still ring...

In later years I went back to that tree
And it still bore the scars of her and me But looking up above no fruit could I see Just a lonely little ghost
Well, he had moved into the branches there
Looking rough he was all scared and bare
He glanced at me but didn’t seem to care
He just stared out over the coast
He said, “Let me tell what the winter brings
It freezes every river, heart, and spring
It bleaches land and sky ’til they look the same
So cold and numb that you don’t feel the pain

“The wind ploughs through you like a runaway train
You close your eyes but that’s where memories hang
The fondest memories deal the sharpest pain
All other memories seem to stoke the shame

“There’s icy drifts across the prairies and plains
Though your parched, you don’t dare pray for rain
You walk for miles to find that nothing’s changed
You can see forever but you can’t see a thing”