CRAFTER LYRICS

1. Worth

Is there anything worth fighting for?
Strangled by fear, half-collapsed to the floor
In love with hatred, ambition cloaked in vanity
We are shells of the kids we used to be
Useless and distracted, afraid to maintain the world that fell at our feet
We may have stumbled but it has to mean something to us
Caught in the rapture between hope and fear- I'll stay right here
I walk to the ridge where the nightmare reappears
Her secret dances in my ear:
"We're lost out here, broken in spirit, willing to kill the nothing that defines us."

2. Forever Restless

"Get in the car," he said, "and I'll take you home."
You'll wander all those roads where boys buried souls like bones
Unable to love, robbed of trust, unsure what to hold onto
When sorting through the rubble a generation was buried in
I didn't want to be the one standing on the bridge
With hands locked and face pressed against the fence
Staring at the underpass wondering where time went
And what we could have said to avoid the rooms we were lured into
Standing in darkest halls searching for a light so radiant
And still we strive to be good men despite it
She's convinced I tried while I wonder:
If we did enough to quell the storms that surged in all of us
Outwitting the homes that shook beneath your feet
I had everything. You had nothing
You can rest easy when I drag you here
And at night when you're locked in the backseat by the tracks on memory lane
With your head in your hands, facing what was taken
And what shaped that anger
Foolishly running into the arms of the absent
I hope you remember that dignity begins in the hearts of the kids
Though I dodged the hands I've longed to break since back then
Believe me when I say for all our sake
It wasn't theirs to take. It wasn't theirs to take
Forever restless: this is our home
So take care of each other because we are all we have

3. Every Home a Broken Home

I don't recognize this place anymore
A cold wind blew in when I closed the shutter
We held the world in broken glass
Obsessed with madness
What a life we had back there
Time makes loneliness of the years
Did you know you can't go home again?
So climb out of the basement you're hiding in
Put out your cigarette and walk home from the apartment
There is a world outside these walls and it's changing beyond our grasp
Your father's gone and not a God like we once thought
While your mother is face down on the sidewalk
You inherit the habit that kicked her mind to the gutter
And the rain floods in where the drought began
To teach us that every home we'll ever know is broken
And you'll be drenched to the bone when you fail to outrun it
They slam the back doors and turn the keys
These roofs are levees that no longer contain the rage
The walls caved and families gave in
Those dented walls mark domestic insanity
I went the same way, fell over your boots in the back room, wondering:
If there's an antidote, prepared for a life without purpose, peace, or hope
But we found hope, we found vision despite miles of paved blank pavement
There is a world outside these walls so unhinge your heart and let us go
Your sons and daughters are free to search this out on their own
We're where we need to be. Just let us go. Every home we've ever known is broken

4. Wealth Weighed in Spirit

They told us to give up
We can, we must rely on patience to carry us away from the storm
Holding close what brought us together
Sifting mortar lines, yearning for a pulse
I saw something change in you when your head hit the window pane
Our throats tore open, I put my feet back on the pavement
Our blood too hot to idle as the waves they weakened your knees
Your spirit waned and you said so clearly to me:
"I'm lost, my friend, in the echo of an old embrace
I'm not sure of anything, too content to run down every street
Rattling gates in the hopes that someday I'll rearrange the misery"
We can, we must, rely on patience to carry us out of the storm
Striving for change, kicking up the dirt
Coast to coast with six years to learn:
I'll stay right here in this roadside ditch
And when the sun paints my face I'll press the pen to the page
'Cause these roads are far too blank and I'm unwilling to die with my bones so straight

It was no choice to leave
Lift yourself from this defeat
Our hearts were built to roam

5. Unsaid

This may be the last bus I step off as i bid farewell to a long run
We used to laugh when our legs braced the sand
Turning up the songs when I went two decades deep
I longed for stolen pages and harnessed back
Floating like tumbleweed across the tar
With an eagerness to know if I could raise myself from inaction
My brothers told me that we’re all the same
Less alive these days, honing complacency
Unable to see the time we cast away

6. In Passing

[feat. Jess Nix of Mortality Rate]

"Keep moving kid, you've got a lot to learn"
I refuse to stand still. The early days crushed the foundation of our souls

"I stand on the shore and struggle to breathe, stuck in a loop of memories
Of hiding under bridges, escaping the sinking sun. Please give me relief."

Some day I'll beg you for that memory
We can't leave her there, deserting compassion
While diverting the blame
All too proud of the arrogance we maintained

7. Young and Hungry

I'm climbing out of the trench I once stood in
Choosing direction- a new path to lead us away
From the depths of violence that led the jaded to say:
"Someday you'll see when you're not so young and naive"
I'll unclench these fists when I am ready to see
What it means to heal and how it feels to be redeemed
Setting free a flock of blocked ideals starved of the young for all those years
We're old enough to know it

There resides a fire awaiting the spark in all of us
Shown the ideal that guided hearts through the dark

Lost little boys shuffle towards the door with bags packed, eager for the world
What broke you, broke me just the same
For all the young and hungry lost on the old and wounded
And those too tired to lift their heads from the dirt
Like dogs who forgot how to dance in the rain
We'll watch those years wash away

There resides a fire awaiting the spark in all of us
Shown the ideal that guided hearts through the dark

Those lost old men are running scared
The tail-tucked wolves they thought they had to be (what is it you thought you had to be?)
I see you standing on the edge of the earth
I saw you looking for a way out of the hurt
I am standing here with my hand extended
I will wait right here with a mind pried open
I am standing. I am waiting

8. Crossroads

At these crossroads we either beg or strive for a better life ahead
That shell-shocked vision, captivating when youth was stolen
Nurturing an awareness of who I am and what I will need to believe
If I am going to survive this world with the slightest flame
To guide us through the forests of disbelief
It must've rattled your skull when the market fell
Jeff's wife ran out and he put a shell through his mouth
It's a hell of a thing where men go to die
The theatres are now a terrain undefined
But in this need for self-reliance I'm dodging gutters, motel run-off needles and stumbling twenty-somethings where our daughters tuck their skirts while avoiding the alleyways
So if peace was anything, it was a song
It was the last word in that defining verse
It counted for something, it picked our heads up from the floors
And was never in the passing trees, swaying wires or new England leaves, the blood and the bruising in Chicago streets

It was found in you and me while we questioned everything, never to surrender truth and decency
Maybe next year when the van leaves us stranded it will all make sense to us
Somehow it all makes sense to me

9. Embrace

Why are we running from the arms of history?
Brown noosed for nothing, complacent- we became
Unwilling to lend our hands to love
Where we failed to cut loose the chains
In the hopes that someday we'll rope the flag to high mast and shine
We'll see the names carved proudly in concrete
Someday is always yesterday
There was no peace in closed fists
Or resolutions spoken by old men on Main Street
Recalling mistakes made when they were young
Rambling on about the world they once knew
Unable to see the one we aim to create
Embrace, create, embrace, embrace
There will be time to lie still in the grave
Waiting on something to save us from what it is we became
Apathetic and divided, unwilling to see sameness, perfecting the role of enemy
Now we watch from the edge of this precipice, utterly ignorant
Misled by newsreels that preyed upon our distance. We chose wars by accident
When we lost an ideal that once left us in love with the world

So I ask:
Are we still capable of love?
Are we incapable of love?
Embrace. Create. Embrace. Embrace

10. Lonely are the Beautiful

You watched him turn blue on the floor
She was a stone in that chair
You stumbled from the porch, screaming, knees burrowed into grass
You never were the same but you and me are the same
We harden hearts to simplify the emptiness this world creates
We shield our souls to winds that sting the skin
We put up walls to block what we can’t understand
I needed you to stay young. Stay young with me
To hold the last of our humanity in a sea of empty seats
We harden hearts to simplify the emptiness this world creates
Stay young with me

You wanted a better life for me

He died a poor man and we waved to him in passing
Smoking on the porch, toothless in grin
You may not see him again but I’ll be home again
Loneliness bites like a spider in our sleep

I wanted a better life for you

11. Cemetery Ridge

The ridge became our stage tonight
The lights ignite decay and the blight
Below are broken windows and the boarded walls
From 04 in Baltimore to trailer parks in Arkansas
Where working families were torn apart
How do we end this divide and the fatigue of infinite uncertainty?
I can't promise a brand new start
Since we molded bars that locked us in
We were just kids in search of the ends of the earth
Pushing back with an iron heart the oceans that rose to set us back and apart

I'm not willing to give up on us

And bury every lesson that took years to uncover
In the persistent pursuit of truth
For long enough we've lived in hell
That way of life is gone, nothing's the same
I'm not sorry for what I couldn't do alone
So stand with me and learn to sing
We'll trace handprints on the brick we left blank
Making use of what it is that remains
No longer waiting for our lives to meet that end
We can't stop searching. We won't stop searching for a better life ahead

I am ready to learn







CRAFTER LYRICS