The Simple Joy Lyrics by Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band
I can barely tell the cattle roads
From the chemtrails of our past lives
From this here cloud where I now stand
My school was a dunk-tank clown
For some school yard lass to chastise
My ribcage was a looney bin built
To keep my heart out of her hands
I keep busy in the daytime
Charging glow worms
Joys less simple seem to feel
Like child’s play now
Perhaps the love we had
Was not what made the globe turn
But more akin, in fact
To what made the cows lay down
Oh, the simple joy
Oh, the simple joy
Home was close, death was hard
Friends are both
You can’t put a sticker price on hurt
Trust is a flower that is toxic to some
And it grows from beneath
I learned that time is not my friend or my foe
More like one of the guys from work
And life was a safe
If you could *** it or not
I slapped the factory clock
With the rows of my teeth
Those who helped grow me
Didn’t know me, kinda lonely
Nearly landed a *** shot
‘Till I grew up and started living alone
Now, you can spell RIP in limestone
On a hilltop
With the sediment they cried
When I didn’t come home
Oh, the simple joy
Oh, the simpler loneliness
I’ve been making business cards
From community boards
Since I was a boy
Now I’m trading my doubles for the
Circuit judge’s home address
Bump the farmhouse hum up
The city of noise
Are we getting any closer to me knowing
What the point of this is?
The point of all these simple joys
Oh, the point of all these simpler lonlinesses
I’ve got a name for every one of my dollars
Not counting what’s in the carseats
I numbered out a list of miscellaneous reasons
To explain why I’m leaving
Not counting the reasons unclear
If you need a proper goodbye
I could still catch the last bus to Marcy’s
But you could train a parrot to do what we do
When we end up there
So walking all night, about the simple joy
Talking all night about the simpler loneliness
‘Cause it’s only at night that the farmhouse
Confides in the city of noise
And tonight it feels I’m only feeling with the feelings
That I don’t express
Or does this life think it is to deprive its contestants joy
How you’d want to pit a Vietnam vet
Against a measly cigarette that still somehow ain’t killed
How can it be that such an infinite payroll
Wants loneliness and [?]
Who am I to try to shut a country singer’s mouth
When they’re still singing about Hank Williams?
Well I can barely tell the cattle roads
From the chemtrails of our past lives
From this here cloud where I now stand
My ribcage was what but a looney bin
Built to keep my deranged heart
Out of your hands
I was hardly known to God
Much less those who had sought
To make their home in a bullseye
‘Till I grew older
And I started travelling on
Now, you can spell RIP in limestone
On a hillside
With the sediment they cried
Since I been gone
Oh, the simple joy
Oh, the simpler loneliness
I been making business cards
From community boards
Since I was a boy
Now I’m trading my doubles for the
Circuit judge’s home address
The simple loneliness will do
They can throw me in the shoe, for all I care
You tell them everything I know
About the simple joy
And I won’t plead the fifth
I’ll run what’s left of the clock down
Doing pushups
And cheating at solitaire
Singing all night about the simpler lonelinessess
Singing all night about the simple joy
Singing all night about the simple joy
Singing all night about the simple joy