Music: The Avett Brothers/Robert William Jr Crawford/Scott Yancey Avett/Timothy Seth Avett
(Little Brother)
To my darling Melody Anne,
We shall not meet again.
By the time you read this,
I will be dead.
It's hard to believe
I won't see you again
We were just fighting when winter began
The coldness of our words
Competing with the wind from the north
Still they make me shiver
But in a very different way
The pages of the calendar kept turning away
I have some better words now
But it's too late to say them to you
My dream of all dreams
And my hope of all hopes
Is only to tell you and make sure you know
How much I love you and how much I always did
And yes, I know you loved me
I could see it in your eyes
And it was in your struggle and it was in your mind
And it was in the smile you gave me when I was a kid
(Captain)
To my wife,
I have led my ship into the teeth of a squall.
My entire crew is dead but for we four in the lifeboat.
All those other good men dead and drowned,
and I did not have the grace to die with them.
I never had any grace.
But now I understand
(Captain & Little Brother)
And now my only chance
(Captain, Little Brother & Big Brother)
To talk to you is through my prayers
(Little Brother) I only wanted to tell you I cared
(Big Brother)
Final words to my dear mother and father.
I will not let my brother die alone.
Every night after and every day since
I found myself crying when the memory hits
Sometimes it knocks me down
Sometimes I can just put it away
(Brothers) Down in my mind where I don't care to go
(Big Brother) The pain of a lesson is letting me know
(Big Brother & Captain) If you have love in your heart
Let it show while you can
(Big Brother, Little Brother & Captain)
Yes, now I understand
But now my only chance
To talk to you is through my prayers
(Little Brother) I only wanted to tell you
(Big Brother) I only wanted to tell you
(Captain) I only wanted to tell you
(Little Brother) I only wanted to tell you I cared
(Mate)
And who do I write to?
The sporting ladies and dockside whores?
There is no one awaiting my last words.
Nobody to sing along with my peculiar threnody.
No tears for me.
This is the life I have made.