Where the Water
Won’t Move

Dark water barely moves
Moon caught in the grooves
Cypress shadows leaning low
Watching where the slow tides go

Mud between the roots and reeds
Night alive with hidden seeds
Every ripple bending light
Something breathing in the night

Backwater
Turning slow
Where the silent rivers go

Backwater
Deep and wide
Holding secrets in the tide

Slide guitar begins to cry
Like a bird that can’t quite fly
Bassline rolling through the mud
Slow as ancient southern blood

Wind moves soft across the trees
Carrying the swamp’s old keys
Every note begins to sway
Like the night might drift away

Backwater
Turning slow
Where the silent rivers go

Backwater
Deep and wide
Holding shadows in the tide

River breathing thick and low
Moving where the lost things go
Moon dissolving into black
No way forward, no way back

Backwater
Still and deep
Where the drowned memories sleep

Black water preachin’ low
Don’t say where the sinners go
Feet sunk deep in the clay
Ain’t no road, just drift away

Hear that slow bell ring
Don’t know what it brings
Voices caught in the reeds
Talkin’ in a tongue of need

Black mud gospel, pull me down
No clean hands in this town
Sing it slow, let it crawl
No one gets out at all

Cypress lean like they know
Every secret buried below
Eyes in the waterline
Watching you cross that line

Black mud gospel, pull me down
No clean hands in this town
Sing it slow, let it crawl
No one gets out at all

Something move where the water don’t break
Line in the mud that the reeds won’t take
Step too close and the ground won’t hold
Feel that silence turnin’ cold

No sound made but it’s still there
Cut through the heat in the heavy air
Eyes don’t blink, don’t need to see
Know it’s circlin’ under me

Don’t run fast, don’t run slow
There ain’t a place you can go
Water don’t ripple, dirt don’t shift
Everything caught in a cottonmouth drift

Heat don’t rise, it settles in
Under skin, under skin
Water don’t flow, it holds the breath
Slow like a promise, slow like death

Slow fever creek
Don’t let it speak
Slow fever creek
Don’t let it speak

Hands feel light but they won’t move
Something there in the groove
Step in once, you don’t step back
Time goes soft, fades to black

Slow fever creek
Don’t let it speak
Slow fever creek
Don’t let it speak

It’s already in
It’s already in

Light in the water, don’t reach the ground
Moves when you look, gone when you turn around
Hanging low where the air won’t dry
Burnin’ soft in a crooked sky

…crooked sky
…sky

Step gets slow when the glow gets near
Feels like something want you here
Hands don’t warm but they feel the flame
Like it knows your name, your name

Lanterns in the mire
Low and never higher
Lanterns in the mire
Call you down through fire

Don’t look too long

Don’t follow straight, don’t follow twice
Every path got a hidden price
Light don’t lead, it only stays
Watchin’ you through the haze

Lanterns in the mire
Low and never higher
Lanterns in the mire
Call you down through fire

Cypress stand, don’t ever bend
Know where the water end
Roots go deep where the dark won’t show
Hold what the river know

…river know
…know

Don’t say it loud
Don’t say it loud

It hears you

Hands in the water, still as stone
Ain’t no one here alone
Something moves but it don’t appear
Only gets close when you near

Hear it now
Hear it now

Tried the left, tried the right
Same dead end every time
Trees don’t part, ground don’t give
Ain’t no other way to live

Marks in the mud, all the same
Every step just repeats your name
Turn around, it don’t change
Still right here in the same old place

There ain’t no road
There ain’t no road

Sky don’t shift, water don’t run
Day don’t break, night don’t come
You can walk till your legs give out
Still end up where you started out

Feel it pull where the ground don’t show
Underneath where the currents go
Step ain’t yours when it starts to take
Every move just another mistake

Hands reach out but they don’t find
What you lost, what you left behind
Water holds what you never said
Keeps it down where the light is dead

Don’t fight it now
Don’t fight it now

Name goes soft, face goes thin
Don’t know where you end or begin
Pull gets slow, then it don’t return
Nothing left but a quiet burn

Low… low… low…

Bones in the water, white and still
Don’t know who they used to kill
Stacked up quiet under the green
Singin’ soft where they ain’t been seen

Hear it call
Hear it call
Hear it call

Ain’t one voice, ain’t two or three
Whole damn swamp start talkin’ to me
Words don’t land but they stay around
Floatin’ thick in a hollow sound

Don’t go down
Don’t go down
Don’t go down
Don’t go down

Stay
Stay
Stay

Silt in the water, thick and slow
Covers up what you used to know
Every word that you let go
Settles down where it won’t show

Say it once and it don’t come back
Sinks too deep in the muddy black
Voice gets lost, turns into ground
Never makes another sound

I been hearin’ it call my name
Not too loud but it stays the same
Not a shout, not a cry for help
Just a sound that makes itself

It ain’t gone
It’s just below

You don’t fight it, you let it be
Let it take what it needs from me
Leave me still where the water lies
With the rest that never rise