Miss misfortune sails down the rails with her brow to the windowpane
The scenery that she sees in her soul doesn't match with the blur in her
brain
She can trace the tricks of the tracks like the ribs of a rattlesnake
'Til all her pastel chalk lines of fact are erased like a schoolgirl's
slate

She is reading her own tattoos
Her diary is the evening news
She can't give a damn on cue
On a freight train to nowhere

If she were not scorching the rails with the haste of a bolting ghost
There would be no reason to fear the death-rattle in the engine's throat
She could call for the minicams or take up a gun or be politically
correct
But that kind of justice still preys on the ones with the stones hung
around their necks

She is reading her own tattoos
Her diary is the evening news
She can't give a damn on cue
On a freight train to nowhere

She's heard it said by the drone in her head
That the wages of spend is debt
She figures that's better than nothing to show for the years of tears
and sweat
If she could put her hand on the brake of the land
Find the treason in the diesel and the smoke
She would jar the teeth of the dull and the meek and feed them the truth
until they choke

She is reading her own tattoos
Her diary is the evening news
She can't give a damn on cue
On a freight train to nowhere

From Satellite Sky
Back to the Mark Heard Lyric Project