Away From The Sky

•      

  For all that it cost him he never did complain
  The chicken-headed man feathering the rain
  But the last bus is tired and everybody's gone
  And the horses are waiting in the middle of the lawn

  Gone from the rodeo,
  Gone from the tundra, gal,
  It's after the fair, that's when
  I see you there

  She's sleeping in the canvas, the fat man hollers, "Who?
  Tender is the night, is it bleeding out of you?
  Come into my trailer and we'll toast a little bread,
  Oh look, you've left a hole where you laid on my bed,"
  He said

  But you keep what you can keep,
  When you dive into the deep,
  There's year after frozen year,
  That's where I...
  saved you there

  Oh, away from the sky, Oh, away from the sky
  Oh, away from the sky, Oh, away from the sky

  But everybody's gone now,
  It's after the fair
  And the horses are painted with the waiting of the air
  You turn the carousel on
  When the lights have closed down
  And watch your ponies run through the middle of town

  So there ya go, little gal, there ya go
  Gone from the tundra now,
  It's after the fair,
  That's when I...

  Over the fences again,
  And the vacuums in the hall,
  And the planes up in the air,
  That's where I...
  hear you best

  Oh, away from the sky, Oh, away from the sky
  Oh, away from the sky, Oh, away from the sky

  Rickie Lee Jones

  
  

"This song was inspired by a dream i had about John Lennon... he was riding a bicycle along the sea in an English seaside town, with Yoko in back on her bike, and their son in back on his own little bike. And as he came to the pier he turned and looked at me, and time slowed down, and he sang 'there was a crooked man who lived on a crooked shore, but now he'll never have to go away anymore, oh, away from the sky....' And he turned then, on to the pier, and time sped up, and he was gone. I decided to wake up and write it down.
But the song is also infused with a Dylan Thomas circus story, the bleak Welsh landscape of my ancestors, and the tender, distant horses of my childhood..."

RLJ