Butchered Tongue

[Intro]
Bm D/F# G Bm
Bm D/F#
G Bm

[Verse 1]
     Bm                     D
As a child, it was the place names
        G                 Bm
Singin' at me as the first  thing
             Bm          A               F#sus4          F#
How the mouth  must be employed in every corner of itself
        G         D          Bm
To say, Appalacicola or, Hushpuckena, like,
    G
Gweebarra
  Em7/B          A
A promise softly sung of somewhere else

[Chorus]
D               G                                Bm
 And as a young man blessed to pass so many road signs
            G                            A
And have my foreign ear made fresh again on each unlikely
     F#m
sound
But feel at home,
G            D        Bm                  D/F#
 hearin' a music that few still understand
                  Em7/B              A
A butchered tongue     still singin' here above the ground

[Verse 2]
D    Bm                          D           G
 The ears were chopped from young men if the pitch cap
           Bm
didn't kill  them
           Bm                A                    F#sus4
They are buried without scalp in the shattered bedrock  of
        F#
our home
        G                      D
You may never know your fortune
          Bm                     G
Until the distance has been shown between what is
    Em7/B       A
lost     forever
And what can still be known

[Chorus]
D            G                                   Bm
 So far from home to have a stranger call you darling
                  G                          A
And have your guarded heart be lifted like a child up by
        F#m
the hand
            G                D
In some town that just means home to them
             Bm                 D/F#
With no translator left to sound
                  Em7/B              A                    D
A butchered tongue     still singin' here above the ground

[Outro]
Bm D/F# G Bm Bm D/F# G Bm