Hometown Hooray - White Hinterland

Down by the old stone church

Where the joe-pye weed and the mallows grow

Those petals bigger then my fist

Watch them bob and bow when the wind does blow

There grows a cypress tree

And in its trunk I carved you name

And right beside it I carved mine

They’ll give you the hometown hooray

When you come home, baby

Bronze your combat boots

And set your bones in clay

Write down every word you ever had to say

No one wants to believe you died in vain

The first spring that you were gone

The women who lived on the flat roof-tops

Had sherds sewn with quickly germinating seeds of greens

In all of their Sapphic celebrations

They held fires and dances, chanted your name

Tied yellow ribbons round the trunks of trees in town

They’ll give you the hometown hooray

When you come home, baby

Bronze your combat boots

And set your bones in clay

Write down every word you ever had to say

With Homeric undertones and half the length

But the skies held a collusion of their own

And on the sunniest day there ever was

You died at the tusk of a bayonet

And Aphrodite found your body

Sprinkled nectar in your wounds

And you blood dripped red anemones

That shimmered just like precious stones

And they floated down the riverbank

To the tributary that now shares your name

And the rapids from then on ran red

They run red to this day

They’ll give you the hometown hooray

When you come home, baby

Oh bronze your combat boots

And set your bones in clay

Write down every word you ever had to say

With Homeric undertones and half the length

We used to walk past the blue schoolhouse

We wore our love like it was a crown

And our skin was a map we knew by heart

We never once got lost

We never once got lost

No one wants to believe you died in vain

The Sapphic women who love you so

Still cry every spring when the fennel goes

And the wheat and the barley and the hardy rye

Wither and go to seed

I walk down to the old stone church

Where the joe-pye weed and the mallows grow

Those petals droop now heavy with rain

Watch them bob and bow when the wind does blow

There, my favorite cypress tree

As tall as the steeples I can see

They’ve tied a yellow-ribbon 'round its trunk

That covers your name where I carved it twice

I rip that ribbon off the tree

Burn it down by the river that now shares your name

Place the ash where the water ravenously licks the riverbank

We used to walk past the blue schoolhouse

We wore our love like it was a crown

And our skin was a map I knew by heart

We never once got lost

We never once got lost

No one wants to believe you died in vain