Chris Pureka

Porch Songs

Chris Pureka


We sang porch songs like we were rock stars
We drank cheap beer and tried to make it last
Then it was back in the car
The coast to the cornfields
Maybe we were just looking for something else to call ourselves

Rest stop coffee, yeah postcards back home
Back seat scenes of strange towns
Keep driving on, driving on
In the middle of the night, we took a wrong turn
Ended up on a mountain in the pine trees and the moonlit earth

Oh the scattered light, a photograph in mind
Of a summer day, squinting at the sun
It's a warm stone, that I carry along
You know I, you know that I
I've been saving quarters, for the toll roads
We can pack the car tonight, we can leave town tomorrow
Put me on a porch swing out in Portland
Put me on an F train, roll me back into Brooklyn
Well we closed the bars, like we were cowboys
And then we wrote our names in the dirt by the side of the road
And October came and the winter drew near
With the cold fingers digging in under the ribs
But we were campfire girls and we were kicking up the leaves
And we returned to our jobs with our clothes smelling of wood-smoke

Oh the scattered light, a photograph in mind
Of a summer day, squinting at the sun
It's a warm stone, that I carry along
You know I, you know that I
I've been saving quarters, for the toll roads
We can pack the car tonight, we can leave town tomorrow
Put me on a porch swing out in Portland
Put me on an F train, roll me back into Brooklyn

We sang porch songs like we were rock stars
We drank cheap beer and tried to make it last