We Keep Painting

Intro

(Seventeen hundred)

(Forty-two)

Verse 16

I woke up in a workshop

With a hammer in my hand

There were shavings on my shoulders

There were guild marks on my hand

A man was calling me a name

That I had never worn

I answered to it anyway

Like a coat that I had torn

Verse 17

The ceilings there were painted

With a sky that wouldn't move

I was told to make the angels

And to make them look approved

So I ground my blue from stone

And I ground my red from bone

And I signed my work in corners

Where no one would look alone

Pre-Chorus

A scratch, a glow, a ringing line

The scaffolding began to pine

I held my brush the way you hold

A hand you'll have to leave behind

Chorus

I keep landing, keep landing

In the middle of somebody's year

Every window is a stranger

Every stranger disappears

I keep painting, keep painting

On whatever wall I find

Seventeen 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 18

I apprenticed to a woman

Who mixed her colors wrong on purpose

She said the truth is mostly mud

And anyone who says it's pure is nervous

She taught me how to draw a crowd

And how to draw a single person

She said the trick is not the face

It's the standing still of curtains

Verse 19

I painted in a chapel

Where the plaster wouldn't dry

I painted in a hallway

Where the light came sideways, shy

I painted in a cellar

Underneath a bakery

And every time I finished

Someone painted over me

Pre-Chorus

A creak, a flicker, then a slide

The wall became a tide

I felt the mortar going soft

And there was nowhere left to hide

Chorus

I keep landing, keep landing

In the middle of somebody's year

Every wall is a doorway

Every doorway disappears

I keep painting, keep painting

On whatever wall I find

Seventeen 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 20

I sat for a portrait once

For a lady with a lapdog

She wanted me to look like someone

Who had never left a town

I sat so still my fingers

Started aching for a brush

I thought, this is how it happens

You get painted and you hush

Verse 21

There was a boy who swept the floor

Who asked me what I drew

I said whatever isn't there

He said that's everyone I knew

We traded drawings in the dark

Mine of him, his of a door

He said a door's a promise

That you'll never need it more

Pre-Chorus

A hum, a crack, a hollow sound

I watched my shoes sink in the ground

I grabbed a ladder, grabbed a rail

And the ladder came along

Chorus

I keep landing, keep landing

In the middle of somebody's year

Every name is a hallway

Every hallway disappears

I keep painting, keep painting

On whatever wall I find

Seventeen 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

Bridge 6

Maybe I was never meant to finish

Maybe finishing's a lie

Maybe every ceiling that I painted

Was a floor I'd never try

(A floor I'd never try)

So I keep the edges open

So I keep the corners bare

So there's room for someone later

To stand in and be there

Verse 22

I met a girl who carved the ceilings

Out of wood instead of paint

She said plaster always cracks

But a grain will never faint

She had sawdust in her braids

And a chisel in her belt

She said I've carved a hundred faces

And I've never carved myself

Verse 23

We worked a whole winter

In a workshop with one stove

She carved the beams, I painted

Every flower, every grove

She said don't you ever wonder

If the hum is someone calling

I said I stopped asking questions

When the questions started falling

Pre-Chorus

A crack, a hum, a hollow ache

The workshop gave a shake

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