Sever my limbs, count the rings on this middling tree

I’ve hit an age where the new craze is crazy to see

Carry my stumps to the fire, I’ll build life from debris

You see the fruits but I’ll show you the roots that grew me

I wasn’t comfortable being held or humbled or tasted,

I was the rabbit when frightened, hide, freeze, fly from chasing

The glances I threw out to graze for attention were wasted

Til I fled the burrows in summer to plains that embraced me

Hop on the old 34,

To watch the hushed hills and closed doors

Melt into the city

(Chorus)

And we’d while away

We’d while away the days

Yeah we’d while away

We’d while away the days

We’d flee security, weaving white knuckles together,

We were the safety pins, patches, frayed denim and leather

We shared the shade and the sun and the songs and the pleasure

We’d fall in love and in lust for the week or forever

We were the riffs and the growls

The white noise of wheels on the ground

The now and the never

(Chorus)

One of those times was the last I would see of my friends

Not with a bang but a deafening whisper of new lives calling for them

As decades deserted me, I went from sapling to strength

But every new leaf has been raised by the roots that I grew then

Now I can’t keep track of of the days

But I could scream all of their names

And carve all of their faces

(Chorus) x2