You can cross the continent but the troubles and the dreams
have a way of following
walking to the highway to get a ride
laughing cuz I'm getting laughed at by road construction guys
looking like the fool right off the card
fucked up haircut with my thumb out and a skittish dog
thinking I get along with everyone just cuz they'll drop their confession on a stranger riding shotgun

That's why the thistle grows there in the gravel
by the on-ramp where so few would travel
to get close to finding out through what droughts you could live
growing wild roots through all this artifice

Spend a decade in a town knowing you might never be
more than invasive weed
all the people struggling just so they can stay
can't stop dreaming of the day I finally blow away
we spent so long getting stable
planting the garden, setting our table
If we sit there with our feet itching to run
it's cuz what we're really hungry for is a place we belong

That's why the thistle grows in between concrete
that's why we walk everyday down that street
to get close to one who knows how prickly we get
Trying to grow our roots through all this artifice

Do we move through time or is it time flowing through us
with the blood lines?
Animated our ancestors, now it's making us move with the rhythm of the tide's turn
Turning on the moon's strict schedule
Picking up where the last crisis left us, and you'll
be one of many standing on the shore praying to the horizon that time would flow backwards

That's why the thistle grows down by the water
barbed wire around our makeshift altars
Kneel down and find out how thirsty we could get
trying to find our roots in all this artifice