Heat Lightning Rumbles In The Distance – Lyrics

12:01
Leaving Time
Disappear
Better Off Without
(untold pretties)
After The Damage
Better Than The Truth
Betty Ford
Depression Era
Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance
Come Back Little Star
Fifteen Days (Leaving Time Again)

12:01

It’s 12:01
The rain and wipers play a spooky song
As I cross the O’Neal Bridge and Colbert County line
To where the liquor laws are different

It’s 12:01
The zombies are buying liquor because it’s Monday morning
I’m sitting in the parking lot as they flip the sign
And I always see some friends as I stand in line
And I head to Billy Ringo’s and I’ll stay there til dawn
Where the music’s always playing I’ll take his banjo and strum along
To chase away the morning

2:45
I know she’s at home sleeping as I open number five
It’s this company I’m keeping that is keeping me alive
These friends of mine
A bunch of lost cases just marking time
Before life’s supposed to start, guess in the end it’s fine
Maybe, maybe not, ain’t getting out alive

She told me she don’t care if I come back there anymore
but if I do, move quietly as I open up the door
and crawl into the bedroom and pull back on the covers
In the end it’s evident its over.
It’s over. It’s over

Leaving Time

The baby’s on the bedroom floor
Suitcases and clothes galore
Everyone’s just a little bit sore
When it comes to leaving time

Sister ain’t got much to say
The unexpected in the worst of spaces
Momma’s gonna be pissed all day
When it comes to leaving time

When it comes to leaving time

Do what you’re told without a fuss

Run the errands and load the bus
Don’t forget to give a damn about us
When it comes to leaving time

Add three hours to the old time zone
Faces on the Jetson’s telephone
Sing your songs and then bring it back home
In three weeks time

Hush little baby, have no fear
Only six more tours until the end of the year
Thank God, the package store sells more beer
Its nearly leaving time
I know everything’s gonna be ok
I know it’s harder when Daddy’s away
But I carry y’all with me in my heart, every night and day
And I ain’t never leaving
Just carrying us all to a whole bunch of places

Do what you’re told without a fuss
Run the errands and load the bus
Don’t forget to give a damn about us
When it comes to leaving time

Add three hours to the old time zone
Faces on the Jetson’s telephone
Sing your songs and then bring it back home

Disappear

Underneath the couch
I sleep through it all
As the very last drop
Is smashed against the wall

Out in the driveway
Accusing words fall out
I’m underneath your dress
Beneath the bedroom window

Sometimes I disappear
I learned to at an early age
Before your very eyes
I’m somewhere far away

If I make it down
and come in for a landing
I’ll kiss you till its August
But fly away in June

Simply disappear
and vanish into thin air
Sometimes its much better to just not be there.

And sometimes I hear words
spoken underneath the song and I associate so freely

And sometimes I hear words
spoken underneath the song and I associate completely

Sometimes I disappear
since I was three or four
I see your lips move
but I can’t hear you anymore

Better Off Without

I’m better off without her holding me down
Driving me crazy when she’s not around
Better off without pacing back and forth
Taste of ocean water leaves me wanting more

And if salty is what she craves, why am I so bitter?
She’s so sweet it rots my teeth every time I kiss her
If I’m better off in fifty ways, why do I still miss her?
Misty eyed and tossed about
Thinking about things I’m better off without (x2)

I guess I’m better off without all she was about
Her mood swings so violently it’s tough to stand my ground
It’s so tough to stand around, pacing back and forth
Lonely is awake alone, four in the morning

While She’s off to better things, better off without me
I would only hold her down until she stopped fighting
And my skin is underneath her nails since she came unbound
It’s too late to turn around

Thinking about things I’m better off without (x3)

(untold pretties)

It started raining just as I dropped her off at her car. The sun was on the cusp of rising and it was still cool from late winter, but the days were now warming into springtime. She walked halfway to her car then turned around and looked at me and smiled, then ran back to my window as I rolled it down for her to stick her head in and kiss me one more time, then run back in the rain to her car. Get in and drive off.

I sat there for a time, with the rain starting to drizzle into my open window sitting in the parking lot of The Southern Touch. Thinking.

As far as I’m concerned it was the last time I ever saw her.

On the drive out to the funeral to bury my Granddaddy, it began to snow.
Growing up in North Alabama, it seldom snowed, sometimes a couple of years would go by, sometimes it might snow twice in a season, but it was still a novelty.
The sky was as grey as an open chord and as plaintive as fog in black and white.
My Granddaddy always liked snow and somehow I did too.

The drive was out the old Savannah Highway, which was still two-laned then.
We winded around dead-man’s curve where that lady from the Sunbeam bread wrapper was killed in a head-on back when I was little. Out past our family’s farm and to the little Methodist Church where once upon a time my Grandmother had gone to Sunday school as a little girl. The same humble structure that witnessed their marriage of forty two years and where just a few years ago I had gone to Youth Group and Methodist Youth Foundation camp-outs, hay-rides and lock-ins.

Maybe I thought about that sad snowy morning and burying my Granddaddy those few years later as I drove home in the rain. Home to my fiancé’s bed, just a few weeks shy of getting married with the taste of an old high school sweetheart lingering on my lips and fingers and the rain started pouring down.
Out of the sky like a wonderful wrath from God. A God who might spite me even as I turn from his grasp and shun his embrace. I was plotting an escape that I was still a few years away from having the guts to pull off.

Years later that realization became a personal hell that followed me around for a while.

But then didn’t anymore.
You can only carry hell around so long before it gets to be a drag.

After The Damage

Soon as I saw you standing there, I’z incomplete
I felt the world slip from under my feet
I felt the world come crashing on me
You could have warned me about my defeat

I paid my attentions and I paid all my fines
For the sake of adventure and losing my mind

Guess I needed somebody to make me a mess
Get me up in the morning and get me undressed
Make sure all my sport coats are clean and well pressed
Make sure my shortcomings are adequately addressed

You made me a sandwich and helped me unwind
I left you damaged and out of your mind
You’re as good as good as good can be
I never thought it would happen to me

How can you leave me now after the baggage and babies?
After the damage I done, after the life that you made me?
After the damage you done, how can you leave me now?
After the damage you done, I’ll figure it out somehow

How can you leave me now after the baggage and babies?
After the damage I done, after the life that you made me?
After the damage you done, how can you leave me now?
After the damage you done, how can you leave me now?

Better Than The Truth

Billy Ringo always said the fish don’t bite
“Can’t get a break for all my life”
“Can’t get a break to save my life”
Fell out the window with the glass bong in his hand
On the ground, he did land
On his back with it smoking in his hand

Billy Ringo said he nearly to crash his car
on the windy roads not far from the house he used to live in
Said he felt the tires lifting off the pavement
but he pulled it out in time and he made it home by five

and he said “I’m only looking for an acceptable level of bullshit I can live with
but something’s got to give
and I never could stand that son of a bitch there in the mirror
when he’s staring back at me
Staring back at me”

Billy Ringo liked to play his music loud
said he never was allowed to become the things that he said he
was destined for those nights, drinking at the bar
Talking about his shiny star and it’s impending incline

and he said “I’m only looking for an acceptable level of bullshit I can live with
but something’s got to give”
and if I wrote it in a movie it would all end differently
and be better than the truth
Better than the truth
The last time I saw Billy he was drinking at the bar
We caught up and made some small talk and he invited me over
and he started giving me all the paintings on his wall
said he wanted me to have them and I didn’t know what for

and if I wrote it in a movie it would end there on the ground
like I said there in the first verse that’s how he would be found
I would spare the moviegoers all the bitter sad details

Better than the truth

Betty Ford

Don’t want to commit you again
I don’t want to hit you – ever
But something just has to be done
This whole thing is getting out of hand

Don’t want you sleeping out in the car
Falling out on the bathroom floor
If I have to I’ll load you up
Drive you all the way to Betty Ford

(c)
As the sun peaks through the window
for the fifteenth time this year
and your sprawled out on the concrete
in what you wore to the party

I can own up to my actions
I can deal with the corresponding guilt
Something just had to be done
To tear down the walls you built

(c)

Depression Era

Cornbread and buttermilk, better clean your plate
He lived through The Great War and came back to his home state
Married his young sweetheart, never would complain
The world it keeps on changing but he ain’t never changed

Depression Era
He lived to tell the tale
He’s depression era
He don’t ever fail

The boy who called him Daddy has grown in different ways
The things that made him happy have long since gone away

Depression Era, caked in red clay mud
Depression Era, survival’s in his blood

Biscuits and gravy, eggs all the way
Fought in the Navy and made it back this way
Loved his beautiful wife, now he’s full of hurt

A Methodist all his life but he don’t go to church

Depression Era, some things never fade
Depression Era in the modern age

He always rose above it but nothing’s as it seems
Anger has its pitfalls as does living in your dreams
His dreams they are fading, he’ll make a final stand
He’d never hit a lady but he might just kill a man
Depression Era
He lived to tell the tale
He’s depression era
He don’t ever fail

Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance

Heat lightning rumbles in the distance
The sun’s falling west of the trees
The old oak’s gone and the house is falling down
But the ghosts are a comfort to me
Ghosts of my family and the time that’s moved on
The changing of the old guard to new
Standing here in the day’s final light
Strong beside you

Strong beside you on this land that I brought you to
Strong beside you with my arm holding you close
Strong beside you with these babies at our feet
A warm summer wind blows

A warm summer wind blows and the chimney’s fell down
The grass ain’t been cut and the road into town
cuts through the woods and the barn needs a roof
But there’s things more important and I’m holding the proof
I’m holding the proof and it’s keeping me strong
Amidst this hollow endless longing

This hollow endless longing takes its toll on us both
And I guess that its good that its showing
Looking for comfort in the knowing
Looking for comfort in the knowing

Nothing takes the place
To the ones you left behind
Of the place you always held in this heart of mine

Holding on alone to the place you always held
As heat lightning rumbles in the distance
The night creeps slowly by as I hold myself together
Somewhere between anguish and acceptance

The night creeps slowly by as I hold myself together
Somewhere between anguish and acceptance

Come Back Little Star

Heaven blue eyes
Those long black lashes
Razor tongue and Southern drawl
Pouring out like molasses
That trail of silver mercury
To show us all what you’ve seen
You always have a drink in your hand
But your liver ain’t what it used to be

I’m really not mad; I mean I’m trying hard to understand
We both had these dreams too long to let them
slip through your hands
I’ve got a drink or two myself to control the sting
This town got blown to tatters when you traded
in your wheels for wings

Baby don’t go
Come back little star and take me with you in the night
Exploding in the sky casting shadows in the light
Take me with you
All these journeys and plans we could share
Or will the dreams we made together
Leave me lying lonely here

Lying lonely here
Broken shutters flapping in the rain
The wind’s crying lonesome breeze
Oak tree’s snapping from the strain
I just want to stay
in that better time and place

Chasing bugs in your granny’s yard
Before you disappeared into time and space
Baby don’t go
Come back little star and take me with you in the night
Watching everyone we know
Moving slow together as our dreams take flight
Take me with you
We could chase down the sunrise or disappear
Make some wishes join together
And I could wish to have you here

I could wish to have you here

Fifteen Days (Leaving Time Again)

Fifteen days til I get back home
Lock the door, throw away that phone
Always lonely but I’m never alone

Hush little baby, close your eyes
Hurt’s the price for being alive
Hearing your sweet voice on the line
Don’t fill these empty arms of mine

Sun’s coming up though the bus windshield
Flock of birds across an open field
I’ll take a picture to show the kids
Just can’t capture how big the sky is

Fifteen days til I get back home
I’ll chase you around the bedroom some
I know it’s been weeks since I last passed through
But I’ll try to make it up to you

I’ll try to make it up to you
I do the best that I can do
We’ll stretch each day across the rim
Until it’s leaving time again

All songs by Patterson Hood © Pottery Town Music (BMI) all rights administered by Songs of Kobalt Music Publishing (BMI) except Come Back Little Star
(P. Hood and Kelly Hogan) © above and Let’s Get Pinkeye (BMI)

Produced by David Barbe and Patterson Hood
Engineered and Mixed by David Barbe
Additional Engineering by Drew Vandenberg and Andy Lemaster
Assisted by Bennett Moon
Recorded and Mixed at Chase Park Transduction, Athens GA. onto glorious sixteen track, two inch then mixed onto half inch, two track.

Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound, New York NY.

Art Direction – Lilla Hood
Cover and Gatefold Photos by Rebecca Hood
Additional Photos by Rebecca and Patterson Hood
Photos taken at The George A. Johnson Homestead in the fall of 2011. Additional Photos can be seen at www.pattersonhood.com

Disc Artwork and Booklet Illustration – Wes Freed at Willards Garage, Richmond VA
Willards Garage maintained by Jyl Freed

Management – Kevin Morris and Christine Stauder at Red Light Management
Agent USA – Frank Riley and Matt Hickey at High Road Touring, Sausalito CA and Austin TX
Agent World – James Alderman at Free Trade Agency
Press and Publicity – Traci Thomas at Thirty Tigers, Nashville TN
Legal – J. Reid Hunter LLP for Serling Rooks and Ferrara, NYC.
Web – Jenn Bryant at Knuckle Sammitch, Athens GA
Business Management – Tom Scott CPA and Robert Bachman CPA at Trinity Accounting Group, Athens GA

ATO Records – Jon Salter & Phoebe Gellman
PIAS Records – Tim Hall, Edwin Schroter and Steve Rainbow

Road Manager and Live Sound Engineer – Matt DeFilippis (The Mattador)

Scott Baxendale has been building some incredible guitars for us for a few years. They are amazing hand-crafted instruments made with love and care (and only the finest of woods).
“Disappear” was written on a Kay/Baxendale Mandocello that he built for me.
Scott works out of Baxendale Guitar in Athens GA and can be reached at www.baxendaleguitar.com

Brad has pretty much always played Ludwig Drums and would like to thank Kevin Packard and all the folks there for treating him so well. Brad also wants to send special thanks to Chris Brewer and Meinl Cymbals for all they have done on our behalf.

Patterson Proudly Uses: Rapco Cables, Seymore Duncan Pickups, D’addario Strings, Pretty Road Cases, Greer Amplification and Pedals and Jittery Joe’s Coffee.

Patterson Proudly Supports Nuci’s Space Artist Resource Center. Please read all about this great organization at www.nuci.org

Thanks to my family, friends, management, agents, crew, support staff, publicist, label and all of the other tons of fine folks who enable what I do and how I do it. Thanks to DBT and all of the incredible players on this album and participating in my live shows.