(Spoken Intro) (The sound of water lapping against wooden pilings. A foghorn bellows in the distance, low and mournful. The piano enters, sparse and resonant, mimicking the slow rocking of a boat at anchor. A muted trumpet sighs a breathy, lonely melody over the top.) "They say the ocean’s a graveyard with no headstones. Just miles of blue ink and salt. You spend enough time between the ports, you start to forget the shape of your own front door. You’re just a ghost in a wool coat, waiting for the tide to decide where you belong. Which is usually nowhere." (Verse) The harbor lights are needles stitching fog into the bay I’m packing up my shadows for the turn of another day The dockside’s got a rhythm that the landlubbers don’t know It’s the pulse of the propeller and the undertow below I’ve got a letter in my pocket that the rain has turned to lace And a map of every coastline that I’ve tried to erase. (Chorus) And oh, it’s a long way down when the water’s black as coal The sea is just a hungry place that’s searching for a soul You trade your heart for compasses, your memories for the breeze And leave your name like wreckage in the salt between the seams Yeah, we’re all just drifters on a deck that’s slick with gray Waiting for the horizon to wash the grief away. (Verse) The tavern’s full of sailors with the rust upon their skin They’re trading tall-tale tragedies and spilling out the gin The moon is just a lantern that’s burning down to wick And the waiting at the shoreline makes the spirit feel so sick I see the mast-lights dancing like the spirits of the lost Counting up the miles and ignoring all the cost. (Chorus) And oh, it’s a long way down when the water’s black as coal The sea is just a hungry place that’s searching for a soul You trade your heart for compasses, your memories for the breeze And leave your name like wreckage in the salt between the seams Yeah, we’re all just drifters on a deck that’s slick with gray Waiting for the horizon to wash the grief away. (Bridge) (The saxophone swells—a thick, brassy cry that sounds like a wind howling through the rigging. The accordion provides a wheezing, harmonic backdrop that feels like a ship creaking in the swell.) The stars are indifferent, they don’t guide you home no more They’re just distant, cold embers on a dark and quiet floor And the anchor’s just a promise that you break before you sleep There’s no use in holding onto things you’re meant to keep. (Verse) So throw the lines to starboard, let the current take the lead There’s nothing left to harvest, there’s nothing left to seed Just the rolling of the vessel and the singing of the wire And the memory of a hearth-fire that’s gone and lost its fire I’m a navigator of the nothing, I’m a captain of the void Just a piece of human driftwood that the ocean has enjoyed. (Chorus) And oh, it’s a long way down when the water’s black as coal The sea is just a hungry place that’s searching for a soul You trade your heart for compasses, your memories for the breeze And leave your name like wreckage in the salt between the seams Yeah, we’re all just drifters on a deck that’s slick with gray Waiting for the horizon to wash the grief away. (Outro) (The piano melody simplifies to a slow, descending pattern. The bass holds a single, low vibration. The muted trumpet drifts off into silence, leaving only the sound of water against the hull and the soft hiss of the tape.) Just the salt... In the seams. No home... No harbor. Just the tide. (Sound of a bell buoy clanging once in the distance.)
