The Trail Remains Unseen

from Descartes Highlands by Paul Thomas Saunders

	/

lyrics

Leave the house,
Your lover,
And children.
Take the car,
Drive it down to the ocean,
Cut your cards,
Burn the letters you were given,
In every word they swore true love was hidden.
Tear apart your black suit,
Cut your hair to its roots,
Smoke your last cigarette,
One last comforting breath.

Then you howl down that road,
Where all your brothers and your sisters wouldn’t go,
Dream of girls that made you feel fifteen,
With the palest skin,
And her mother’s sympathy.
But that trail remains unseen.

Take the urn,
Spread its ash on the garden,
Every leaf will carry her love in summer.
Turn the dial,
Let the long wave flutter,
Fighting static and song beneath the ether.
Under a clear crescent moon,
You hum along out of tune,
Every doubt is erased,
Spills out the car and into space,

As you howl down that road,
Where all your brothers and your sisters wouldn’t go,
As the fields turn to coast,
Let the water scare away all of your ghosts,
Of the girls you held at seventeen,
They had skinny waists and teenage liberty.
All these things that you have seen.

Every star,
Every stone,
Every soul you’ll never know,
Spiralled out that great spark,
To let us know that once we weren’t so far apart.
From the girls that made you feel sixteen,
How your brothers t-‐shirts hung above her knees.
All these things that you have seen.

credits

from Descartes Highlands, released April 16, 2012
A home recording performed and produced by Paul Thomas Saunders. Co-produced and mixed by Max Prior.

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Paul Thomas Saunders

My new album ‘Figure in a Landscape’ is out now.

orcd.co/ptsfigure

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