Pilgrim (You Can't Go Home) - Dave Rawlings Machine

I won’t get drunk no more, no more

The old refrain it shines with use

While you sop your bread in barley wine

And mop your floor in tobacco juice

So they kicked you out of paradise

Grinned and locked the garden gate

What those devils called your greatest sin

Gabriel and I called your great escape

Where you gonna run?

Tell me where will you roam

When you can’t go home (you can’t go home)

You can’t go home (you can’t go home)

Oh pilgrim, you can’t go home

The gilded cage cannot contain the gypsies of the earth

The poet and the tumbleweed discuss what rootlessness is worth

And pity those who never felt inspiration’s cold wet nose

And wakes you up out in the ditch

Where you’re tumbling round

Where the four winds blow

Where you gonna run?

Tell me where will you roam

When you can’t go home (you can’t go home)

You can’t go home (you can’t go home)

Oh pilgrim, you can’t go home

The Polaroids of Indio show desert flowers entwined

Their nakedness has already been blasted by the sands of time

But still you thought your sad Jane

Would wait for you 'til who-knows-when

But that little girl’s got a new tattoo

To let you know you can’t go home again

Where you gonna run?

Tell me where will you roam

When you can’t go home (you can’t go home)

You can’t go home (you can’t go home)

Oh pilgrim, you can’t go home

So spin the wheels of St. Columba’s

And ride his golden calf

Climb up the silver strings of the mandolin

'Til you can hear the angels laugh

And if rock and roll is more your thing

Go ahead and wear the badge

'Cause chaos needs another king

A pillar of smoke who don’t look back

Where you gonna run?

Tell me where will you roam

When you can’t go home (you can’t go home)

You can’t go home (you can’t go home)

Oh pilgrim, you can’t go home

I am dirty and torn, my tail’s hung out

A ship with tattered sails

Been down and out

Around the horn to chase the great white whale

Across the night and across the day

I save my song for eternity

Now here I find you gazing out

Of the window at St. James infirmary

Where you gonna run?

Tell me where will you roam

When you can’t go home (you can’t go home)

You can’t go home (you can’t go home)

Oh pilgrim, you can’t go home

So keep rolling, rolling down that road that you’re on

Keep rolling, rolling, rolling on

Rolling on, rolling on, rolling on…

Keep rolling, rolling down that road that you’re on

Keep rolling, rolling, rolling on