Josh Ritter - Thin blue flame

I became a thin blue flame
Polished on a mountain range
And over hills and fields
I flew Wrapped up in a royal blue
I flew over royal city last night
bull-fighting the horns of a new moon light
Ceasars ghost I saw the wartime tides
The prince of Denmarks father's still unquiet
The whole world was looking to get drown
Trees were a fist, shaking themselves at the clouds
I looked over curtains, it was then that I knew
That only a full house gonna make it through

I became a thin blue wire
Held the world above the fire
And so it was I saw behind
Heaven's just a thin blue line
Your god's up there he's in a cold dark room
The heavenly host or just the cold dark maze
He bent down and made the world in seven days
And ever since he's been walking away
Mixing with nitrogen and lonely holes
Where neither seraphim or raindrops go
I see a man wandering the halls alone
But only a full house gonna make a home

And I became a thin blue stream
The smoke between asleep and dreams
And in that clear blue undertow
Is a royal city far below
Borders soft with refugees
Streets are swimming with amputees
It's a bible or bullet they put over your heart
It's getting harder and harder to tell them apart
The days are nights and the nights are long
Beating hearts blossom into walking bombs
And those still looking to the clear blue sky for a sign
Get missiles from so high they might as well be divine
And now the dogs are howling at your door
Singing about vengeance like it's joy of the Lord
Bringing justice to the enemies, not the other way round
The guilty were killed and they're killed where they're found
If what's loosed on earth will be loosed up on high
It's a hell of a heaven we must go to when we die
Where even Laurel begs Hardy for vengeance please
The fat man's crying on his hands and his knees
Back in the peace time he caught roses on stage
Now he twists indecision, takes burbon for rage
Like pellets peppering aluminum
Halcion, laudanum, and opium
Sings kiss thee hardy this poison cup
His wind up sheet is busy winding him up
And doctors he looks for the lights that have died
You need faith for the same reasons that it's so hard to find
And this whole thing is headed for a terrible wreck
And like good tragedy that's what we expect

And then I made plans for a city laid down
The hips of a girl on the spring covered ground
Spirals and capitals and the twists of a script
Streets named for heroes that could almost exist
Fruit trees from Eden and the gardens that seem
To flow like the smoke from a lithium dream
Ceder trees growing in the cool of the squares
Young women walking in the portals of prayer
The future glass buildings and the past in a dress
The wedding's in pollen and the wine botttom-less
And all wrongs forgotten and all vengeance made right
The suffering verbs put to sleep in the night
The future descending like a bright chandelier
The world's just beginning and the guests have good cheer
In royal city I fell into a trance
Cause it's hell to believe there ain't a hell of a chance

I woke beneath the clear blue sky
The sun had shot the breeze aside
The old hometown and the streets
I knew Wrapped up in a royal blue
I heard my friends laughing out across the fields
Girls in the gloamin' and the birds in the wheel
The raw smell of horses and the warm smell of hay
Cicadas electric in the heat of the day
A run of three sisters in the flush of the land
and the lake was a diamond in the valley's hand
The straight of the highway in the scattered out hearts
They were coming together they were pulling apart
And angels everywhere were in that midst
The ones that I loved and the ones that I kissed
I wondered what it was I'd been looking for above
Heaven's so big there aren't no need to look up
So I stopped looking for royal cities in the air
Only a full house gonna have a prayer

Only a full house