Ground Don't Want Me - Josh Ritter

Buried mama standing with the knife still in her chest

As per her last instructions at her death

Said you’ll never get to heaven, son

So go to hell real slow

Now the ground don’t want me, mama

The ground don’t want me, no no no

I’ve stacked the deck, I’ve held the dead man’s hand so many times

Eights and aces wishing for the death I hoped was mine

But cards and guns are all the same

Each man must draw his own

Now the ground don’t want me, mama

The ground don’t want me, no no no

What is the body when the soul is flown?

Has it only been forgotten?

I want to lay down in a field of bone

But an angel guards the garden

I killed men in Blue Eye, Barbaco, New Life and Crystal Wells

In every town, the broken-hearted rang their steeple bells

For every man, a box

For every hole, a rose

Now the ground don’t want me, mama

The ground don’t want me, no no no

What is the body when the soul is flown?

Has it only been forgotten?

I want to lay down in a field of bone

But an angel guards the garden

Then one morning near Arkana, I chanced to watch some violets rise

Their lunar blues undoing down the fastest days and nights

And I thought how sweet to sleep

Beneath the flowers such as those

But the ground don’t want me, mama

The ground don’t want me, no no no

What is the body when the soul is flown?

Has it only been forgotten?

I want to lay down in a field of bone

But an angel guards the garden

Sometimes I think 'bout mama with the knife still in her chest

Sometimes I think 'bout all those lucky men I sent to rest

And how it’s them who are a-sleepin'

And it’s me who is the ghost

Now the ground don’t want me, mama

The ground don’t want me, no no no

What is the body when the soul is flown?

Has it only been forgotten?

I want to lay down in a field of bone

But an angel guards the garden