Mansion On a Hill

There’s a shoebox of treasures that have weathered the years since your mama was sixteen or so

A long strand of pearls, a bunch of old letters to lovers she really didn’t love

I was eighteen in nineteen sixty seven headed off to somewhere I couldn't pronounce

I needed something to carry me through what she gave me I still have it now

Your mama was shy didn’t like the way her body was shaped and I don’t know why

Couldn’t take her picture to save her life so I painted her over again in my mind

What she gave me I still have it now

A fifteen cent postcard of a picturesque town

With a house on hill top and her name I’m the corner 

I knew I’d never forget her 

She said when you come back you can build me a great big mansion on a hill

We’ll watch the sunset over the valley from some big balcony all by ourselves

I’ll wait as long as it takes - If you need a reason not to get killed 

Come back and build me a mansion on hill 

The way that I lived, son let me tell you I thought I’d be one to go down young

Someone must’ve been crazy to think it was wise to give my idle hands a gun 

But they taught me how to say yes sir and no sir and they tried to tell me I’d die for a good cause

The only good thing that I had, she was waving me off when I left the bus stop 

She said when you come back you can build me a great big mansion on a hill

We’ll watch the sunset over the valley from some big balcony all by ourselves

I’ll wait as long as it takes - If you need a reason not to get killed 

Come back and build me my mansion on hill 

It’s been seventeen years, ten months and fifteen days since the day we laid her down

The silence is strange in a relative way but I think I’m starting to come around 

I still feel my hands hammering nails, pouring down concrete, cutting fence rails

More than a war, son, I had to come back and show her that I wouldn’t fail and she said

To anyone else this two story house ain’t no mansion on a hill

But how many times did we watch the sunrise there on the front porch all by ourselves

This place was well worth the wait and waiting on you was worth more, still

Love will last longer than any old house ever will 

Love will last longer than any old house ever will