Lyrics James McMurtry

James McMurtry

Charlemagne's Home Town

I?ve got it all to myself now

Crack the window just a hair

Dark and close, the way I like it

Black tobacco chokes the air

I keep to myself, I lack the language

I measure out my life with coffee grounds

The trees are the color of ashes

In Charlemagne?s home town

I said I didn?t fear the distance

As if I?d ever been that tough

I can hear your voice across the water

But that?s nowhere near enough

Won?t you fly across that ocean

Take a train on down

Because the night?s growing lonesome

In Charlemagne?s home town

The fortune teller told me nothing

That I wouldn?t have found out on my own

She read my palm and she took my money

She looked at me with eyes of stone

She said the odds are long and stacked against us

Still we try because we must

To keep from leaving our senses

Long forgotten in the dust

Like the bones of some saint

Beneath a church floor

Who must have died for lack of light

The color snapshots I sent you

All came out in black and white

There?s a lonely child on a snow white pony

On a carousel in the market place

He sits on that horse and he looks right through me

A shadow falls across his face

What will I do when my glass is empty

What will I do when it all comes down

What will I do when it comes to nothing

In Charlemagne?s home town