Appendix

Well, I went to New Orleans, sling-shot through the air
And I let the hot peppers burn a hole in my tongue
I went back to my birthplace and my first taste of air
So I could bury my blues in the sound of the accordion

I went looking for my lost home in the rising sun

I went to the corner where my pa painted portraits
And I looked for the woman who sold him his brushes
Not much had changed since all of those rites of passage
The mimes in the quarter sold me fresh flowers from their buckets

And under their greasy smiles I found their frowns
And under their frowns ghost of smiles

Well the pagans they sprang from the woodwork and shadows
And somebody shouted "boy, get out of the street"
Some children threw water from a two-story window
It splashed at my ankles and then it turned into steam

And I heard somebody laughing so it turned to see
But when I looked up that fire escape they turned their backs on me

So I left for alabama, land of the red clay
Where the kudzu crawls consuming all the dead and all the living
Where the water moccasins slither in the creek
And the sun is the bright hammer that bruises everything

And I saw my life go by in reverse
And I followed it down to the crossroads

I watched my mother's first house burn to the ground
And my sacred old trailer was hitched and picked clean
I found the graveyard where the weeds split the stones
And felt the parents of my parents standing under my feet

And they were holding me up, you might say

So I drove parallel to a montgomery train
And I delivered myself back to the midwest
I arrived in the night while my brothers were asleep
I said the reconstruction failed again but i passed the test

I went looking for my lost home in the rising sun
I went looking for my lost home and found none

I went looking for my lost home and found none
But now I can sleep wherever I lay my body down