Children of Children - Jason Isbell

Pictures of the farm before us

Old men in a gospel chorus

Sepia and saddle horses

Easy on the reins

Eighty-one, a motor inn, your momma’s 17 again

She’s squinting at the dusty wind

The anger of the plains

You and I were almost nothing

Pray to God the Gods were bluffing

Seventeen ain’t old enough to reason with the pain

How could we expect the two to stay in love

When neither knew the meaning of

The difference between sacred and profane?

I was riding on my mother’s hip

She was shorter than the corn

All the years I took from her

Just by being born

I didn’t mean to break the cycle

At 17, I went by Michael

No one ever called me by my own name anyway

Five full generations living

All these expectations giving way to one

Late to have a baby on the way

You were riding on your mother’s hip

She was shorter than the corn

All the years you took from her

Just by being born