[Intro | weary spoken-word, distant banjo] They say I loved the darkness... Like it was something I pursued... [Verse 1 | hushed folk-punk storytelling | banjo, acoustic guitar] They say I loved the darkness Like it was something I pursued Like I wandered into graveyards Just to find a better view But I was just a husband Watching winter take its due And every story that I wrote Began and ended with you Virginia, my Virginia The fever stole your breath While I sold my books and furniture To bargain with your death The doctors took my money The coughing took the rest And left me with a haunted heart Beating in an empty chest [Chorus | louder, emotional | gang vocals on final line] The raven never said "Nevermore" That's just what grief sounds like At three a.m. in a rented room When you've already lost the fight The world calls me a genius A poet soaked in doom But every ghost I ever wrote Was Virginia in my room [Instrumental Break | clawhammer banjo lead | building tension] [Verse 2 | more animated vocal delivery] I wasn't chasing madness Madness chased me down Wearing Virginia's wedding dress Through every goddamn town Her veil caught on the church bells Her train dragged through the mud And every town remembered her By a different shade of blood I kept trying to outrun her But grief don't travel slow It knows every road to nowhere That a desperate drunk can go And she'd be waiting at the crossroads Pale as winter's first snowfall The only faithful thing I ever knew After all [Chorus | bigger, rougher vocals] The raven never said "Nevermore" That's just what grief sounds like At three a.m. in a rented room When you've already lost the fight The world calls me a genius A poet soaked in doom But every ghost I ever wrote Was Virginia in my room [Bridge | shouted, frantic | banjo and acoustic strumming intensify] Tell the scholars and professors All their theories are a joke I wasn't writing symbolism I was watching my heart choke Every crypt and every pendulum Every shadow, every flame Was me screaming through the darkness And hearing back her name [Breakdown | half-spoken, exhausted] Virginia... Virginia... Virginia... Virginia... why Virginia? [Final Verse | desperate, near-yelling] Then I died beside a roadside Between nowhere and home No fortune and no family No kingdom and no throne Just a pocket full of debts And a body worn and thin A man who spent his whole damn life Trying to love and trying to win The rain erased my footprints The years erased my face And fame arrived too late to save A single thing I chased Because the only thing I wanted Was the life I couldn't save And all the praise in human history Won't warm up either of our graves [Final Chorus | full intensity | gang vocals swell] The raven never said "Nevermore" That's just what grief sounds like At three a.m. in a rented room When you've already lost the fight The world calls me a genius A poet soaked in doom But every ghost I ever wrote Was Virginia in my room [Outro | solo banjo, slowing down] So here's the truth behind the stories Behind the casks and crows above I wasn't haunted by the dead I was haunted by my love. [End | banjo rings out, hard stop]
