Dar Williams
"When It Gets That Way"

When I want to go somewhere, I don't ask forgiveness
I just go where I like, and he knows that.
I walk alone into any party, I'm alone tonight
In that high-heeled ego old hat.
Oh blue night, laughter at the bell toll.
People move like streaks of charcoal.
Someone found a prince in the punchbowl.
But high times fizzle out in a change of heart,
And we know things fall apart.
The morning's off to a bad start.
It's raining. Have you had nights like this?
I run miles to his place, wake him up to look at his place.
I feel astray, and I love it when it gets that way.

The child is so young, they say that child is truly free
And with a mind of perpetual invention.
So why is it now I'm a grown-up, all grown up
And yet now I fly through the ceilings of convention?
Oh new friend, borne out of a mind-cloud.
Make believe and yet I laugh aloud.
I've cried when you have stood ground.
But sometimes playtimes are a ghost I've faced,
In that room that I've erased.
The air is empty and druglaced.
I am completely gone. Are you still with me, then?
With my head so big and awfully,
Take my hand and lead me softly,
And then you stay, and I love it when it gets that way.

And when I was crazy maybe I wanted, I wanted, I wanted to be steady as an iceberg,
And with nowhere fast a-going.
Now, now I can handle the danger zone with hailstones all a-flying,
And the crazy winds a-blowing.
These days I haven't been smoking my lungs brown,
Have that itch to turn my life around,
Maybe move on to a new town.
Cause good friends lifted me out of an early tomb.,
Pulled my life out from its doom,
Like sun into a big room
And where my roots have grown.
I really can't let go
Through the woods and through the fields climb
Up the mountain into nighttime, and
Through the day, and I love it when it gets that way.