My name is Joe Roberts I work for the state I'm a sergeant out of Perrineville barracks number 8 I always done an honest job as honest as I could I got a brother named Franky and Frank he ain't no good Now ever since we was young kids it's been the same come down I get a call on the shortwave Franky's in trouble downtown Well if it was any other man, I'd put him straight away But when it's your brother sometimes you look the other way
CHORUS 1: Yeah, me and Franky laughing and drinking nothing feels better than blood on blood Takin' turns dancin' with Marie as the band played Night of the Johnstown Flood I catch him when he's straying like any brother would Man turns his back on his family well he just ain't no good
Well Franky went in the army back in 1965 I got a farm deferment, settled down, took Maria for my wife But them wheat prices kept on dropping 'till it was like we were getting robbed Franky came home in '68, and me, I took this job
CHORUS 2: Yea we're laughing and drinking nothing feels better than blood on blood Takin' turns dancin' with Marie as the band played Night of the Johnstown Flood I catch him when he's straying, teach him how to walk that line Man turns his back on his family he ain't no friend of mine
Well the night was like any other, I got a call 'bout quarter to nine There was trouble in a roadhouse out on the Michigan line There was a kid lying on the floor lookin' bad bleedin' hard from his head There was a girl crying at a table and it was Frank, they said Well I went out and I jumped in my car and I hit the lights But I must of done a hundred and ten through Michigan county that night It was out at the crossroads, down round Willow bank Seen a Buick with Ohio plates behind the wheel was Frank
Well I chased him through them county roads 'till a sign said Canadian border five miles from here I pulled over to the side of the highway and watched his taillights disappear
CHORUS 3: Me and Franky laughing and drinking nothing feels better than blood on blood Taking turns dancing with Marie as the band played Night of the Johnstown Flood I catch him when he's straying like any brother would Man turns his back on his family well he just ain't no good
I don't go to therapy to find out if I'm a freak I go and I find the one and only answer every week And it's just me and all the memories to follow Down any course that fits within a fifty minute hour And we fathom all the mysteries, explicit and inherent When I hit a rut, she says to try the other parent And she's so kind, I think she wants to tell me something, But she knows that its much better if I get it for myself... And she says
What do you hear in these sounds? What do you hear in these sounds?
I say I hear a doubt, with the voice of true believing And the promises to stay, and the footsteps that are leaving And she says "Oh," I say, "What?" she says, "Exactly," I say, "What, you think I'm angry Does that mean you think I'm angry?" She says "Look, you come here every week With jigsaw pieces of your past Its all on little soundbytes and voices out of photographs And that's all yours, that's the guide, that's the map So tell me, where does the arrow point to? Who invented roses?" and...
What do you hear in these sounds? What do you hear in these sounds?
And when I talk about therapy, I know what people think That it only makes you selfish and in love with your shrink But oh how I loved everybody else When I finally got to talk so much about myself...
And I wake up and I ask myself what state I'm in And I say well I'm lucky, 'cause I am like East Berlin I had this wall and what I knew of the free world Was that I could see their fireworks And I could hear their radio And I thought that if we met, I would only start confessing And they'd know that I was scared They'd would know that I was guessing But the wall came down and there they stood before me With their stumbling and their mumbling And their calling out just like me, and...
The stories that nobody hears, and...
I collect these sounds in my ears, and...
That's what I hear in these sounds, and...
That's what I hear in these, That's what I hear in these sounds.
And you know the light is fading all too soon You're just two umbrellas one late afternoon You don't know the next thing you will say This is your favorite kind of day It has no walls, the beauty of the rain is how it falls, how it falls, how it falls
And there's nothing wrong, but there is something more And sometimes you wonder what you love her for She says you've known her deepest fears Cause she's shown you a box of stained-glass tears It can't be all, the truth about the rain is how it falls, how it falls, how it falls
But when she gave you more to find You let her think she'd lost her mind and that's all on you Feeling helpless if she asked for help or scared you'd have to change yourself
And you can't deny this room will keep you warm You can look out of your window at the storm But you watch the phone and hope it rings You'll take her any way she sings, or how she calls, the beauty of the rain is how it falls, how it falls, how it falls How it falls, how it falls, how it falls
