One of the first songs I ever learned on guitar is a haunting piece called "500 Miles," and one of my favorite lyricists is Gordon Lightfoot. "Trace" combines those elements, along with a baritone guitar solo as an homage to the great Glen Campbell!
lyrics
She said, “A penny for your thoughts”
I said “Honey, you ain’t rich enough for that,
If I tell you what I’m really thinking,
You’ll be broke in seven seconds flat.”
Laughing, she said “Try me, go on and run it by me,
You never know what you might find.”
But darling, secrets are for keeping, and
My love is the leaving kind.
There’s no absolution, there’s no saving grace,
When a heart becomes a tear, a tear becomes a memory,
And that memory disappears without a trace.
Then she moved a little closer,
As the evening breeze went strolling through her hair,
My heart was in my throat,
And I could taste her sweet breath floating on the air.
All my comfortable resistance was no match for her persistence,
So I noted every exit north and south,
And I was gone before the day broke,
With a taste for Arizona in my mouth.
There’s no absolution, there’s no saving grace,
When a heart becomes a tear, a tear becomes a memory,
And that memory disappears without a trace.
The sun was high and mighty,
As I watched the landscape fade from green to brown,
The light came dancing off the mesa,
Where the sacred winds come screaming to the ground.
Where the red dust never settles,
It stings your eyes and whips your face,
Before it kisses the horizon, disappears over the ridge–– without a trace.
There’s no absolution, Honey, there’s no saving grace,
When a heart becomes a tear, a tear becomes a memory,
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