[Verse 1 - M] We left at dawn with a trunk full of maps and a half-baked vow, My father’s old compass ticking like a tooth in a jaw. The interstate unrolled like a sermon in tar and seam, And every county line felt like the edge of a half-remembered dream. I was all elbows then, all hunger, all reckless grace, Thinking the world would wait while I outran my own pace. But the first hard lesson came near a diner with chipped red tile: You can keep on driving, but time has its own mileage. [Pre-Chorus] And the signs blurred past like advice I wouldn’t take, Each exit a decision, each silence a shape I’d make. Then the sky leaned low, and I felt it in my bones— The road don’t get shorter, you just start counting home... [Chorus - M] Mile by mile, mile by mile, We were young and the hours ran wild. [Chorus - F] Mile by mile, mile by mile, Now the years pass quick when you smile. [Chorus - M] Georgia heat, Ohio rain, Every state a different name for pain. [Chorus - F] Baby, hold my hand, don’t look away, We’re already farther than yesterday. [Verse 2 - F] I met my grief in a motel with a salt-stained key, It wore my face at forty-five and ordered coffee like me. There was a desert stretch where my mother’s laugh came back in gold, Then a tunnel of bad winters where my younger self grew old. I learned the future isn’t front-lit, it’s a thing you feel, Like a bruise under the ribs or a crack in the steering wheel. And the clock got sly, the way a river gets when it bends, Slow in the beginning, then suddenly gone at the end. [Pre-Chorus] And the dashboard glow turned pale as a chapel flame, Every promise I had made still calling me by name. I saw my childhood in a rearview shard of glass— All that distance in a blink, all that thunder in a gasp. [Chorus - M] Mile by mile, mile by mile. We were young and the hours ran wild. [Chorus - F] Mile by mile, mile by mile, Now the years pass quick when you smile. [Chorus - M] Nevada dust, Carolina storms, Every heart grows into stranger forms. [Chorus - F] Baby, hold my hand, don’t look away, We’re already farther than yesterday. [Bridge] Now the map is folded soft as skin on an old scar, And the kid I was keeps waving from a gas station far. If I could, I’d tell him every wrong turn has its light, Every blacktop ache is just a lesson in the night. So I slow down here where the horizon turns to blue, Let the engine idle while the sky keeps pulling through. [Final Chorus - M] Mile by mile, mile by mile, We were young and the hours ran wild. [Final Chorus - F] Mile by mile, mile by mile, Now the years pass quick when you smile. [Final Chorus - M] All these states just names we wore, Different minds and moving shores. [Final Chorus - F] If the end comes soon, I won’t be afraid, We were always on our way.
