| You are crouched before the fire
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| In a state park by the highway
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| And through the heavy pine trees
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| Ten-ton trucks go groaning by
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| Like the screams of your Aunt Barbara
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| Who went crazy in the '70's
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| Wrote poems to Jimmy Carter
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| But forgot to feed her kids
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| But, it’s the first time you’re together
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| Since he got out of the hospital
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| Raccoons in the darkness
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| Drag off your hot dog buns
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| But, you’re happy just to lie there
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| In your plastic tent from Wal-Mart
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| Like sticks and fallen dead leaves
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| To feed the fire of the world
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| Because which is more important
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| To comfort an old woman
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| Or see visions of the heavens
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| In the stumps of fallen trees?
|
| Albert Einstein trembled
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| When he saw that time was water
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| Seeping through the rafters
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| To put out this burning world
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| Next morning you’re at Waffle House
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| Toast and eggs and hash browns
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| Truckers chain-smoke Camels
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| Over plastic cups of juice
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| And you remember how he cried
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| When they strapped him to the stretcher
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| Convinced his arms were burning
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| With electricity from heaven
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| You remember how he told you
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| That black holes were like Jesus
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| And the crucifix was a battery
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| That filled the air with fire |