Lyrics Dar Williams

Dar Williams

When It Gets That Way

When I want to go somewhere, I don't ask forgiveness

I just go where I like, and he knows that.

I walk alone into any party, I'm alone tonight

In that high-heeled ego old hat.

Oh blue night, laughter at the bell toll.

People move like streaks of charcoal.

Someone found a prince in the punchbowl.

But high times fizzle out in a change of heart,

And we know things fall apart.

The morning's off to a bad start.

It's raining. Have you had nights like this?

I run miles to his place, wake him up to look at his face.

I feel astray, and I love it when it gets that way.

The child is so young, they say that child is truly free

And with a mind of perpetual invention.

So why is it now I'm a grown-up, all grown up

And yet now I fly through the ceilings of convention?

Oh new friend, borne out of a mind-cloud.

Make believe and yet I laugh aloud.

I've cried when you have stood ground.

But sometimes playtimes are a ghost I've faced,

In that room that I've erased.

The air is empty and druglaced.

I am completely gone. Are you still with me, then?

With my head so big and awfully,

Take my hand and lead me softly,

And then you stay, and I love it when it gets that way.

And when I was crazy maybe I wanted, I wanted, I wanted to be steady as an iceberg,

And with nowhere fast a-going.

Now, now I can handle the danger zone with hailstones all a-flying,

And the crazy winds a-blowing.

These days I haven't been smoking my lungs brown,

Have that itch to turn my life around,

Maybe move on to a new town.

Cause good friends lifted me out of an early tomb.,

Pulled my life out from its doom,

Like sun into a big room

And where my roots have grown.

I really can't let go

Through the woods and through the fields climb

Up the mountain into nighttime,

Into the day, and I love it when it gets that way.