[Chords]
Bm G Em F#m
[Refrain Chords]
Bm A G Em
The refrain starts on the seventh fret for Bm, down
to the fifth for A, third for G, then to regular Em.
In between verses: Bm G Em F#m G A C#m F#m
On Bm, use your third finger to hammer the A string
into the G.
[Refrain]
Bm A
Slow pulsing red tower lights
G Em
Across a distance, refuge in the dust
[Verse 1]
Bm G
All my life I can remember longing
Em F#m
Looking across the water and seeing lights
Bm G
When I was five or six, we were camping in the islands in July
Em F#m
The tall yellow grass and the rose hips fragrant
Bm G
After sunset, island beyond island
Em F#m
Undulating and familiar, not far from home
Bm G Em
With my fragrant, whittled, cedared drift wood dagger in the mildew canvas tent
F#m Bm
I saw fireworks many miles away but didn't hear them
G Em
And I felt a longing, a childish melancholy
F#m
And then I went to sleep
Bm G Em F#m
And the aching was buried, dreaming, aging, reaching for an idea of somewhere other than this place
Bm G
That could fold me in clouded yearning
Em F#m
For nowhere actually reachable, the distance was the point
[Instrumental]
Bm G Em F#m G A C#m F#m
[Verse 2]
Bm
And then when I was twenty-four
G Em F#m
I followed this ache to an Arctic Norwegian cabin
Bm G
Where I said "fuck the world" in a finally satisfying way
Em F#m
I stayed through the winter and emerged as an adult
Bm G
Holding a letter from you, an invitation
Em
So I flew back and drove back
F#m Bm G
And when we met in person it was instant
Em F#m
It didn't matter where we lived as long as we were together
Bm G
And that was really true for thirteen years
Em F#m
And the whole time still
Bm
[Refrain]
G
Slow pulsing red tower lights
G Em Bm
Across a distance, refuge in the dust
[Verse 3]
Bm G
In January, you were alive still
Em F#m Bm
But chemo had ravaged and transformed your porcelain into some other thing
G
Something jaundiced and fucked
Em F#m
They put you in the hospital in Everett
Bm G Em
So I gave the baby away and drove up and down I-5 every night
F#m Bm
Like a satellite bringing you food that you wanted
G Em F#m
Returning at night to sleep in our bed, cold
Bm G
I went back to feel alone there
Em F#m
All past selves and future possibilities on hold
Bm G
Well I tore through the dark on the freeway
Em F#m Bm
The old yearning burning in me
Bm G
I knew exactly where the road bent around
Em F#m
Where the trees opened up and I could see
Bm G Bm G
Way above the horizon, beyond innumerable islands
Bm G Em F#m
The towers on top of the mountain lit up slowly, silently beaconing
Bm G Em
As if to say "just keep going
F#m Bm G
There is a place where a wind could erase this for you
Em F#m Bm
And the branches could white noise you back awake"
G Em F#m
So I went back to feel alone there but cradled you in me
[Instrumental]
Bm G Em F#m G A C#m F#m
[Verse 4]
Bm G
In the National Gallery in Oslo
Em F#m
There's a painting called Soria Moria
Bm G Em F#m Bm G Em F#m G C#m F#m
A kid looks across a deep canyon of fog at a lit up inhuman castle or something
Bm G Em F#m
I have not stopped looking across the water from the few difficult spots where you can see
Bm G Em F#m Bm G
That the distance from this haunted house where I lived to Soria Moria is a real traversable space
Em F#m
I'm an arrow now
Bm G
Mid-air
Bm
[Refrain]
G
Slow pulsing red tower lights
G Em
Across a distance, refuge in the dust
