Artist: Nick Drake Album: Five Leaves Left {1969}

Time has told me
You're a rare, rare find
A troubled cure
For a troubled mind

And time has told me
Not to ask for more
For someday our ocean
Will find its shore

So I'll leave the ways that making me be
What I really don't want to be
Leave the ways that are making me love
What I really don't want to love

Time has told me
You came with the dawn
A soul with no footprint
A rose with no thorn

Your tears, they tell me
There's really no way
Of ending your troubles
With things you can say

And time will tell you
To stay by my side
To keep on trying
Till there's no more to hide

So leave the ways that are making you be
What you really don't want to be
Leave the ways that are making you love
What you really don't want to love

Time has told me
You're a rare, rare find
A troubled cure
For a troubled mind

And time has told me
Not to ask for more
For some day our ocean
Will find its shore

Betty came by on her way
Said she had a word to say
Bout things today and fallen leaves
Said she hadn't heard the news
Hadn't had the time to choose
A way to lose, but she believes

Going to see the river man
Going to tell him all I can
Bbout the plan for lilac time
If he tells me all he knows
Bout the way his river flows
And all night shows in summertime

Betty said she prayed today
For the sky to blow away
Or maybe stay, she wasn't sure
For when she thought of summer rain
Calling for her mind again
She lost the pain and stayed for more

Going to see the river man
Going to tell him all I can
About the ban on feeling free
If he tells me all he knows
Bout the way his river flows
I don't suppose it's meant for me

Oh, how they come and go
Oh, how they come and go

Three hours from sundown, Jeremy flies
Hoping to keep the sun from his eyes
East from the city and down to the cave
In search of a master, in search of a slave

Three hours from London, Jacomo's free
Taking his woes down to the sea
In search of a lifetime to tell when he's home
In search of a story that's never been known

Three hours from speaking, everyone's flown
Not wanting to be seen on their own
Three hours is needed to leave from them all
Three hours to wonder, three hours to fall

Three hours from sundown, Jeremy flies
Hoping to keep the sun from his eyes
East from the city and down to the cave
In search of a master, in search of a slave

Don't you have a word to show what may be done
Have you never heard a way to find the sun
Tell me all that you may know
Show me what you have to show
Won't you come and say if you know the way to blue

Have you seen the land living by the breeze
Can you understand a light among the trees
Tell me all that you may know
Show me what you have to show
Tell us all today if you know the way to blue

Look through time and find your rhyme
Tell us what you find
We will wait at your gate
Hoping like the blind

Can you now recall all that you have known
Will you never fall when the light has flown
Tell me all that you may know
Show me what you have to show
Won't you come and say if you know the way to blue

When the day is done
Down to earth then sinks the sun
Along with everything that was lost and won
When the day is done

When the day is done
Hope so much your race will be all run
Then you find you jumped the gun
Have to go back where you begun
When the day is done

When the night is cold
Some get by but some get old
Just to show life's not made of gold
When the night is cold

When the bird has flown
Got no one to call your own
Got no place to call your home
When the bird has flown

When the game's been fought 
You sped the ball across the court
Lost much sooner than you would have thought
Now the game's been fought

When the party's through
Seems so very sad for you
Didn't do the things you meant to do
Now there's no time to start anew
Now the party's through

When the day is done
Down to earth then sinks the sun
Along with everything that was lost and won
When the day is done

Strange face with your eyes so pale and sincere
Underneath you know well you have nothing to fear
For the dreams that came to you when so young
Told of a life where spring is sprung

You would seem so frail in the cold of the night
When the armies of emotion go out to fight
But while the earth sinks to its grave
You sail to the sky on the crest of a wave

So forget this cruel world where I belong
I'll just sit and wait and sing my song
And if one day you should see me in the crowd
Lend a hand and lift me to your place in the cloud

Who can know the thoughts of Mary jane
Why she flies or goes out in the rain
Where she's been and who she's seen
In her journey to the stars

Who can know the reasons for her smile
What are her dreams when they've journeyed for a mile
The way she sings and her brightly colored rings
Make her the princess of the sky

Who can know what happens in her mind
Did she come from a strange world, leave her mind behind
Her long lost sighs and her brightly colored eyes
Tell her story to the wind

Who can know the thoughts of Mary jane
Why she flies or goes out in the rain
Where she's been and who she's seen
In her journey to the stars

Well, there was a man, lived in a shed
Spent most of his days out of his head
For his shed was rotten, let in the rain
Said it was enough to drive any man insane
When it rained he felt so bad
When it snowed he felt just simply sad

Well, there was a girl who lived nearby
Whenever he saw her he could only simply sigh
But she lived in a house so very big and grand
For him it seemed like some very distant land
So when he called her, his shed to mend
She said, "I'm sorry you'll just have to find a friend."

Well, this story is not so very new
But the man is me, yes, and the girl is you
So leave your house, come into my shed
Please stop my world from raining through my head
Please don't think I'm not your sort
You'll find that sheds are nicer than you thought

Fame is but a fruit tree, so very unsound
It can never flourish till its stalk is in the ground
So men of fame can never find a way
Till time has flown far from their dying day
Forgotten while you're here, remembered for a while
A much updated ruin from a much outdated style

Life is but a memory, happened long ago
Theatre full of sadness for a long forgotten show
Seems so easy just to let it go on by
Till you stop and wonder why you never wondered why

Safe in the womb of an everlasting night
You find the darkness can give the brightest light
Safe in your place deep in the earth
That's when they'll know what you were really worth
Forgotten while you're here, remembered for a while
A much updated ruin from a much outdated style

Fame is but a fruit tree, so very unsound
It can never flourish till its stalk is in the ground
So men of fame can never find a way
Till time has flown far from their dying day

Fruit tree, fruit tree
No one knows you but the rain and the air
Don't you worry
They'll stand and stare when you're gone

Fruit tree, fruit tree
Open your eyes to another year
They'll all know
That you were here when you're gone

Saturday sun came early one morning
In a sky so clear and blue
Saturday sun came without warning
So no one knew what to do

Saturday sun brought people and faces
That didn't seem much in their day
But when I remember those people and places
They were really too good in their way
In their way, in their way
But Saturday sun won't come and see me today

Think about stories with reason and rhyme
Circling through your brain
And think about people in their season and time
Returning again and again
And again and again
But Saturday's sun has turned to Sunday's rain

So Sunday sat in the Saturday sun
And wept for a day gone by