At Safe Distance

Music: Patterson Hood At safe distance, we watch it all transpire Moving through existence on steel-belted tires Keep the doors all locked tight and tramp down your complaints Keep some fog in your dialog to temper your disdain Despite resistance, our heroes get torn down They cry out with persistence as they're escorted out of town And moved on to some distant sphere and left out all alone To await some apology in the redemption zone Everything gets complicated when you come back home Buried truths get excavated by eyes now grown Black and white is now shades of gray and you feel so alone You wrap yourself in a cloak of mystery and your face is only shown At safe distance At safe distance, staring down the past An up-close examination of something bold and vast Bad and good and the ties of blood and the facts of where they stood Facts displayed like a flag that waves goodbye Some say nothing good can come from examining too close Stare too long at the stone facade and the cracks will show Your father's eyes are now cold and tired, and his face so deeply lined All the gold's been pulled out from the mine His warm embrace has a darker hue as the end comes into view What once was pure through your childish eyes is complicated by the truth What once was pure as a shot so sure has you longing for a time When you could stand judging right and wrong through tight-drawn blinds At safe distance At safe distance At safe distance At safe distance