The Mountain Goats – Going To Alaska (Guitar)

A D A E
or

G                C
The jacaranda are wet with color,

        G                            D
and the heat is a great paint brush, lending color to our lives,

     G                                C
to the air, and to our faces; but I'm going to Alaska

              G                         D
where there's snow to suck the sound out from the air.

G       C
Up, yes, in the branches,

G                       D
the purple blossoms, go pale at the edges;

         G                              C
there is moaning in the shifting of the sap, and I see in them traces

G                           D
of last year, but then they hadn't grown so strong,

G                                    C
and their limbs were more like wires. Now they are cables.

G                           D                    G
thick and alive with alien electricity, and I am going to Alaska,

     C                         G
where you can go blind just by looking at the ground,

D
where fat is eaten by itself

C                         G
just to keep your body warm.

G                         C
Because from where we are now, it seems, really,

    G                           D
that everything is growing in a thousand different ways;

G                                        C
that the soil is soaked through with old blood and with relatives

G                                           D
who were buried here, or close to here, and they are giving rise

G                                C
to what is happening. Or can you tell me otherwise?

     G                          D
I am going to Alaska, where the animals can kill you,

        G                     C
but they do so in silence, as though if no-one hears them,

        G                         D
then it really won't matter. I am going to Alaska.

C                                     G
They tell me that it's perfect for my purposes.