NINETY-NINE NIGHTS Copper running down your back Like autumn lost a bet Green eyes full of moonlit trouble A man don't soon forget You walked in slow through neon honey Black lace and cedar smoke The kind of woman fate invents When destiny needs a joke And Lord.... The way you leaned against that doorway Made architecture blush Like every nail and board in creation Felt a little too much Ninety-nine nights I chased the meaning Ninety-nine nights You changed the game Eight turned sideways in your laughter Forever wearing your name Sixty-six, sixty-six Girl the symmetry's obscene The way your body fits the dark Like it owns everything between --- Bassline crawling through the floorboards Whiskey sweating in the glass Your fingers drawing little circles Like spells that weren't built to last The jukebox humming low and wicked Like it knew what I'd become Every saint inside my bloodstream Beating drums against the numb You never wasted words on questions You wore answers like perfume The kind that hangs around a doorway Long after you've left the room And every man was watching closely Trying hard to catch your eye While you were busy teaching gravity New and interesting ways to lie Ninety-nine nights I chased the meaning Ninety-nine nights You changed the game Eight turned sideways in your laughter Forever wearing your name Sixty-six, sixty-six Girl the symmetry's obscene The way your body fits the dark Like it owns everything between --- Copper wildfire on the pillow Black lace tangled with the dawn You looked like something old religions Would've gladly built upon The rain kept working at the windows The moon kept hanging on the wire And every shadow in that motel room Looked one temptation higher You traced a line across my chest Like you were reading cedar grain Searching for the hidden places Where a man still keeps his name Then smiled the way a witch might smile When the cards fall exactly right Like you'd seen this whole damn story Before it happened that night --- You never cast a single circle Never whispered to the dead But honey every room you entered Changed its mind instead You wore that copper like a warning Like a torch above the trees The kind of fire men blame on witches When they bring it home themselves And Lord the way you watched me watching Told me more than words could do Like you already knew the distance Between temptation and truth --- Ninety-nine nights Still chasing echoes Ninety-nine nights Still hearing your name Eight turned sideways in the rearview Still refusing not to change Sixty-six, sixty-six Girl the symmetry's obscene The way your body fits my memory Like it owns everything between --- Morning found us half-forgiven Gold light drifting through the blinds Copper scattered on the pillow Like autumn changing its mind You were tracing little patterns On the hollow of my wrist Like fate gets bored with prophecy And settles things with this Outside the world kept making promises It never meant to keep But your green eyes held older magic Than anything I'd learned to read And lying there beside you With your breath against my skin I finally understood Why men write songs Why sailors follow stars Why kingdoms rise Why prophets wander Why poets drink They're all just different ways Of searching for the feeling Of finding something beautiful That was never meant to be explained
