We Keep Painting (Long)

Intro

(Sixteen hundred)

(Forty-two)

Verse

I was born in sixteen hundred

In a town without a name

Where the only light was candle

And the only map was flame

I mixed my paints from berries

From the ash and from the clay

And I painted saints and sinners

Till they carried me away

Verse 2

The town is all glass towers

The streets are full of wire

I wear my apron through the market

And nobody asks about the fire

I sold a drawing to a stranger

For a coin I couldn't read

He said the world had gotten faster

I said that's fine, I know how to be

Pre-Chorus

A crack, a hum, a hollow sound

The ground beneath me spun around

Three hundred years went rushing past

I landed on a darker glass

Chorus

I keep landing, keep landing

In the middle of somebody's year

Every face is a doorway

Every doorway disappears

I keep painting, keep painting

On whatever wall I find

Sixteen hundred forty-two

Is a country in my mind

Post-Chorus

(Oh-oh, oh-oh)

A country in my mind

(Oh-oh, oh-oh)

A country in my mind

Verse 3

I learned to draw the streetlamps

I learned to draw the rain

I drew a woman sleeping

Who woke up and knew my name

She asked me where I came from

I pointed at the ground

She said nobody comes from nowhere

So I drew a little town

Bridge

Maybe time is just a corridor

And I'm a draft beneath the door

Maybe every age is one long room

And I'm the dust inside the broom

(Maybe every age is one long room)

I sweep, I sweep, I sweep

Chorus

I keep landing, keep landing

In the middle of somebody's year

Every face is a doorway

Every doorway disappears

I keep painting, keep painting

On whatever wall I find

Sixteen hundred forty-two

Is a country in my mind

Post-Chorus

(Oh-oh, oh-oh)

A country in my mind

(Oh-oh, oh-oh)

A country in my mind

Verse 4

I tried to stay in one place for a season

Rented a room above a shop

Hung my brushes on a nail there

Watched the water boil and stop

I learned the neighbors by their footsteps

I learned the bus line by its sigh

I bought a plant and named it something

And I watched it live and die

Verse 5

But the calendar kept slipping

Like a picture in a frame

Every morning had a different

Version of my name

The landlord said you've been here thirty years

I said I only signed in spring

He showed me photographs of me

In a coat I'd never seen

Pre-Chorus

A hum, a crack, a hollow ache

The floor began to break

I grabbed the doorframe with both hands

And the doorframe came with me

Chorus

I keep landing, keep landing

In the middle of somebody's year

Every room I furnish

Falls apart and disappears

I keep painting, keep painting

On whatever wall I find

Sixteen hundred forty-two

Is a country in my mind

Post-Chorus

(Oh-oh, oh-oh)

A country in my mind

(Oh-oh, oh-oh)

A country in my mind

Verse 6

So I stopped trying to hold the days

And started holding hands

I painted every stranger

Like they were my only land

A boy who sold me bread once

A woman on the train

I put them all together

In a town without a name

Guitar Solo

Bridge 2

If I can't keep a century

Then let me keep a face

If I can't keep a season

Let me keep a place

Inside the paint, inside the line

Where nothing moves and nothing's mine

(Nothing moves and nothing's mine)

But it's mine, but it's mine

Chorus

I keep landing, keep landing

In the middle of somebody's year

Every face is a doorway

Every doorway disappears

I keep painting, keep painting

On whatever wall I find

Sixteen hundred forty-two

Is a country in my mind

Post-Chorus

(Oh-oh, oh-oh)

A country in my mind

(Oh-oh, oh-oh)

A country in my mind

Verse 7

I met a girl who drew the future

In a notebook on her knee

She said I've seen you in my sketches

You were standing next to me

I said I've been a lot of places

I said I've been a lot of years

She said maybe that's the reason

You keep showing up in here

Verse 8

We painted side by side for hours

In a room with no clock

She drew a house, I drew a doorway

She drew a key, I drew a lock

And when the hum began to rise up

And the floor began to tilt

She grabbed my wrist and said

Then paint me, paint me, paint me

Pre-Chorus

A crack, a hum, a hollow sound

The ground beneath us spun around

I held her hand inside my hand

And we landed on the same ground

Chorus

We keep landing, keep landing

In the middle of somebody's year

Every face is a doorway

Every doorway leads somewhere

We keep painting, keep painting

On whatever wall we find

Instrumental Break

Verse 9

We found a town that looked like nothing

Half a ruin, half a start

She said let's build it out of paper

I said let's build it out of art

We drew a bakery and a river

We drew a steeple and a bell

Every line we made together

Made a place for us to dwell

Verse 10

But the hum came back at midnight

Like a knocking from the past

It said girl, you've been a long time

Nothing you make is meant to last

She said so what, we're only visiting

She said so what, we're only guests

So we drew a hundred windows

And we boarded up the rest

Pre-Chorus

A crack, a hum, a hollow ache

The paper town began to shake

She pressed her palm against my back

And said whatever falls, we fall awake

Chorus

We keep landing, keep landing

In the middle of somebody's year

Every face is a doorway

Every doorway disappears

We keep painting, keep painting

On whatever wall we find

Sixteen hundred forty-two

Is a country in my mind

Drop

Verse 11

She taught me how to draw a morning

That would hold us both inside

I taught her how to draw a shadow

That would never learn to hide

We signed our names along the edges

In a hand no one could read

She said one day they'll hang us in a museum

I said one day we'll be the wall they need

Bridge 3

Maybe we're not lost, we're layered

Maybe we're not late, we're framed

Maybe every century I wandered

Was just practice for her name

(Practice for her name)

I don't need a hundred years

I just need the one that's here

Chorus

We keep landing, keep landing

In the middle of somebody's year

Every face is a doorway

Every doorway leads somewhere

We keep painting, keep painting

On whatever wall we find

Sixteen hundred forty-two

Is a country in my mind

Post-Chorus

(Oh-oh, oh-oh)

A country in my mind

(Oh-oh, oh-oh)

A country we can find

Outro

She drew me a door

I drew her a key

(She drew me a door)

(I drew her a key)

We don't need a year

We don't need a town

(We don't need a year)

(We don't need a town)

Paint me on the wall

Paint me anywhere

(Paint me on the wall)

(Paint me anywhere)

Sixteen hundred

Forty-two

(Sixteen hundred)

(Forty-two)

A country in my mind

(A country in my mind)

A country we can find

Verse 12

We rented out a corner room

With a window full of sky

She hung her notebook on a string

I hung my brushes up to dry

The neighbors thought we were sisters

Or a pair of broken clocks

We didn't bother to correct them

We just painted what we thought

Verse 13

I drew her making breakfast

She drew me drawing her

We got the proportions wrong sometimes

But we never got the hurt

She said the hum is getting quieter

I said maybe that's the point

Maybe time just needed witnesses

To finally let us go

Pre-Chorus

A hush, a pause, a settling sound

The room stopped spinning round

For once the floor just held us

Like a page that wouldn't turn

Chorus

We stopped landing, stopped landing

In the middle of somebody's year

Every face became a window

Every window stayed right here

We kept painting, kept painting

On the one wall we could find

Sixteen hundred forty-two

Was a country in our mind

Post-Chorus

(Oh-oh, oh-oh)

A country in our mind

(Oh-oh, oh-oh)

A country we could find

Verse 14

She grew older in my drawings

I grew older in her hands

The town around us kept on changing

Kept on building, kept on tearing down its plans

They put a screen up in the market

That showed a thousand other years

She said look at all those people

I said we were one of them, my dear

Bridge 4

I don't need to live forever

I don't need to be remembered right

I just want the light that found us

In this ordinary night

(In this ordinary night)

So I'll draw it, so I'll draw it

So it's something, so it's something

So it stays

Guitar Solo

Verse 15

She fell asleep beside the window

With a pencil in her fist

And the hum came back so gently

Like a hand against my wrist

It said girl, your time is borrowed

It said girl, you always knew

I said I know, I know, I know

But let me finish this one, too

Pre-Chorus

A crack, a hum, a hollow ache

The room began to fade

I drew her face a hundred times

So I would not be afraid

Chorus

I keep landing, keep landing

In the middle of somebody's year

Every face is a doorway

Every doorway brought me here

I keep painting, keep painting

On whatever wall I find

Sixteen hundred forty-two

Is a country in my mind

Drop

Bridge 5

If you find a line I left you

In a wall you've never seen

If you find a hand of mine there

Holding yours inside the green

Then I landed, then I landed

In