Lyrics Brandi Carlile

Brandi Carlile

The Stranger at My Door

I have seen the firewatcher's daughter

Watching fires burn from smoke to black

There's nothing she won't burn

From Styrofoam to urns, to someone else's ashes in a sack

You can scorch the metal, you can even melt the glass

You can pass the time here, fire lives into the past

An all-consuming flame, that refines and new begins

It'll take your family heirlooms, but it can take your darkest sins

It's a good ol' bedtime story, give you nightmares 'til you die

And the ones that love to tell it, hide the mischief in their eyes

Condemn their sons to Hades

And Gehenna is full of guys, alive and well

But there ain't no hell for a firewatcher's daughter

We exercise the demons of the things we used to know

The gnashing of the teeth become the remnants of our homes

We think we're moving on, from materials we long

To forget we ever sold our souls to own

There's a chilling absolution that we're given from our birth

A powerful delusion and a plague upon the earth

But nothing scares me more

Than the stranger at my door

Who I fail to give shelter, time, and worth

It's a good ol' bedtime story, give you nightmares 'til you die

And the ones that love to tell it, hide the mischief in their eyes

Condemn their sons to Hades

And Gehenna is full of guys, alive and well

But there ain't no hell for a firewatcher's daughter