Tip of my Tongue

I wish I was in the right frame of mind to type. It's been a long day and I'm looking forward to the week itself to be done.

Pastor Mike drove down from from Denver for church on Tuesday night and afterwards we were talking about music and the conversation steered towards our love of Pierce Pettis and Mark Heard. You probably haven't heard of either of these guys, though you've a better chance of knowing some of Pierce's music. He wrote a song called You Move Me that was recorded by Garth Brooks.

In any case, Mark Heard was a great man. He died early, but the musical work that he left is a legacy that will be treasured by the small community of die-hard fans that were exposed to his work.

Pierce Pettis, a singer-songwriter who was good friends with Mark made it a point to record a cover of one of his songs on each of his albums. This song is one of those covers. It sums up the mood I'm in, it's been a bit of a nasty day. I'm around 30 years younger than everyone else on staff here at work. We moved 1000 miles away from Minneapolis to work here two years ago and when 10 people move that far together they end up bound together for better or worse into something like a family. The hard thing is that because I'm 30 years younger a lot of times I'm not an equal... I'm 'the kid'.

Like a family, there are all of the usual spats. Everything eventually comes around, but when the spats happen, it's not the most fun of times. In any case, I was buried in a project yesterday and today that I just crawled out of. I was buried in it, partially because of one of those spats. It'll be nice when we're larger and some of the familialness starts to fade away.

But the song I'm going to post is called Tip of the Tongue and I think I'll let the lyrics speak for themselves

Tip Of My Tongue

There's an oasis in the heat of the day
There's a fire in the chill of night
A turnabout in circumstance makes each a hell in its own right

I've been boxed-in in the lowlands, in the canyons that think
I've been pushed to the brink of the precipice and dared not to blink
I've been confounded in the whirlwind of what-if's and dreams
I've been burned by the turning of the wind back upon my own flames

Knock the scales from my eyes
Knock the words from my lungs
I want to cry out
It's on the tip of my tongue

I've seen through the walls of this kingdom of dust
Felt the crucial revelation
But the broad streets of the heart and the day-to-day meet
at a blind intersection

I don't want to be lonely, I don't want to feel pain
I don't want to draw straws with the sons of Cain
You can take it as a prayer if you'll remember my name
You can take it as the penance of a profane saint

Knock the scales from my eyes
Knock the words from my lungs
I want to cry out
It's on the tip of my tongue

There's an oasis in the heat of the day
There's fire in the chill of night
And when I know them both, I'll know your love -
I will feel it in the twilight

As circumstance comes crashing through my walls like a train
Or like a chorus from the mountains of the ocean floor
Like the wind-burst of birdwings taking flight in a hard rain
Or like a mad dog on the far side of Dante's Door

Knock the scales from my eyes
Knock the words from my lungs
I want to cry out
It's on the tip of my tongue

Written by Mark Heard © 1992 Ideola Music/ASCAP

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