The Man with the Axe

If I had to break it down I'd say it's the way you love to dance Moving the furniture when my back is turned The flick of the lights, and the world falls away And your office job and your silver hair But our shapes in the dark are The reason I've stayed for all these years I thought I was a genius, but now I'm 22 And it's starting to feel like all I know how to do is Put on a suit, and take it away With my fistful of tunes that it's painful to play Fingernail worlds like favorite seashells They fill up my nights, and then they float away I've got hundreds of gowns, I've got paintings in frames And a throat that fills with panic every festival day Dutifully falling apart for the Princess of Norway But you with your doll's lashes, your infinite T-shirts I should've known when your favorite record was the same as my father's You'd take me down I guess I'll always be this way Swallowed up by the words and halfway to space But there, by the fire, you offered your hand And as I took it, I loved you, the boy with the plan You felled me clean as a pine The man with the axe And the light in his eyes We've been through so many hard times I'm writing a love song for you, baby