Birds of Relocation – Track 7: Soul and Flesh

Birds of Relocation – Track 7: Soul and Flesh

by Eric Peters on March 29, 2012

I wrote this song for my wife (of nearly fifteen years now). On every album I record, I’ve tried to include at least one song specifically about and for her. I remember writing this on a late-night drive home through the dark Appalachian foothills after a show in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Every now and then Danielle will comment on my eyes’ “crow’s feet,” both of us wondering and remarking on what they’ll look like when we’re eighty and have grandkids. It’s good that she knows the crap in my life and all the bitterness I hold in my heart at times. She also knows how hopeless I can be, how I shrink into darkness, how I hide from my friends. It is good to be known. It’s even better to be nurtured back to life. Behind every halfway decent man is a far superior woman.

“Soul And Flesh”

We’re a couple of codependents
Like the span over Pontchartrain
We saw the stars in the latent sky
And set out to stake our claim

At first light when you see me there lying next to you
Surely burdens will have their day, but baby don’t be fooled

She loves me for my smile
And for the crow’s feet on my eyes
She loves the song inside my chest
She loves me soul and flesh

The more I see, the older I wonder
Why life should be so good
And what in me is worth an ounce of care
And is worth holding onto

At last light when you feel me there crumpled next to you
I’ll always be your hopeless half-full glass, so lover come pour into

She loves me for my smile
And for the crow’s feet on my eyes
She loves the song inside my chest
She loves me soul and flesh

I’ll be your mystery beneath these vagrant clouds
But you see right through me and all my flagrant doubts
She knows me so well now

She loves me for my smile
And for the crow’s feet on my eyes
She loves the song deep inside my chest
She loves me soul and flesh
She loves me soul and flesh