Ezra Furman – The Refugee (Guitar)

       Am                Dm
I am a refugee now, I am running like mad

         G                       C         E
across a frosty green Poland, my head in a sack.

        Am                           Dm
And the blood in my brain screaming "How did this happen?"

     G                          C            E
and "Where am I now?" Who is so blue in this freeze?

          Am                     Dm
Who is so grey with the history, rain dancing all

      G                          C         E
on my face without mercy and the muscles relax.

      Am                             Dm
And I just have to laugh through the loose teeth and tissue,

    G               C          E
the symphony builds under your boot.

        Am                      Dm
And the horns drool in harmony, dancers all swoon,

        G                       C           E
this is my bloody tune, my last gasp of the past.

   Am                       Dm
My thorn in the side of the violence of time,

        G                            C            E
I won't scream, I won't writhe, I am laughing and burning.

 Am                         Dm
Alive like a thornbush that grew in the hot

       G                     C          E
countryside, now the fire is high and I am not

   Am                      Dm
consumed. Yes, this is the room,

            G                     C           E
this is the old song from memory, this is the sound of the

Am                 Dm           G            C     E
Jew who refuses to die.

Am            Dm
  April 4th, 1944,

G                 C          E
  I recall my old address no more.

  Am                     Dm
I live day to day on the glossy dancefloor

     G                        C           E
of a wide countryside full of disappeared people.

  Am                         Dm
I sleep in the churches, eat grass like a goat,

    G                     C          E
the calendar hangs on the wall of my memory.

   Am                       Dm
My name is inscribed up the sleeve of my coat,

       G            C      E
here I am.

          Am                     Dm
Take this document with you, the lines that I wrote

     G                           C              E
as I bled through the night in a strange rusted land.

       Am                         Dm
I have ripped the page out, it is here in my hand,

       G            C      E
here I am.

Am                     Dm
Person of the book but I have lost my page

     G                   C         E
like so many others I am left to inscribe

       Am                    Dm
my own name on a torn one we will have a new book

          G                C           E
scattered far across the expanses. The scrapbook

   Am                        Dm
of signatures scrawled in forgotten, lost diaries,

G                           C            E
texts to recite when time's bloody boot, dances

    Am                       Dm
and kicks in the bone of our chest, like soft earth

        G                          C       E
and our ancient hoarse voices will echo in song.

      Am                       Dm
And resound off the curve of a high stony ceiling,

    G                 C          E
the curve of the arch   from our death to our [Outro] birth.