Remember The Mountain Bed
Billy Bragg & Wilco Lyrics

Do you still sing of the mountain bed we made of limbs and leaves?
Do you still think about the time we spent together, surrounded by nature's beauty, feeling each other's warmth?

Do you still sigh there near the sky where the holly berry bleeds?
Do you still long for the moments we shared near the tall trees where the red holly berry is blooming?

You laughed as I covered you over with leaves
You found joy in my silly gestures, as I covered you with leaves

Face, breast, hips, and thighs
Every part of your body was beautiful and celebrated by me

You smiled when I said the leaves were just the color of your eyes
You valued my words and found them flattering when I compared your eyes with the leaves

Rosin smells and turpentine smells from eucalyptus and pine
We both enjoyed the scents of nature, from the pine and eucalyptus trees

Bitter tastes of twigs we chewed where tangled wood vines twine
We explored the forest by tasting the twigs from the vines that entwined the trees

Trees held us in on all four sides so thick we could not see
We were surrounded by trees so thick that they did not allow us to see beyond them

I could not see any wrong in you, and you saw none in me
We were lost in each other's love and did not criticize each other's shortcomings

Your arm was brown against the ground, your cheeks part of the sky
Your beautiful brown arm blended with the brown earth, while your cheeks looked as if they were a part of the beautiful blue sky

Your fingers played with grassy moss, as limber you did lie
You were at peace, laying down and playing with the soft moss around you

Your stomach moved beneath your shirt and your knees were in the air
You were comfortable and carefree, moving your stomach and placing your knees in the air

Your feet played games with mountain roots as you lay thinking there
You were relaxed enough to play around with the roots of the mountain, while you deep in thought

Below us the trees grew clumps of trees, raised families of trees, and they
The trees below us flourished with life, giving birth to new trees and nurturing them

As proud as we tossed their heads in the wind and flung good seeds away
We felt just as proud and content as the trees that lived where we rested, tossing their branches in the wind and spreading their seeds

The sun was hot and the sun was bright down in the valley below
In the valley below, the sun was shining bright and hot

Where people starved and hungry for life so empty come and go
In the valley, people were hungry and deprived of the joy and contentment we found in the mountains

There in the shade and hid from the sun we freed our minds and learned
In the shade and hidden from the sun, we learned to relax and free our minds

Our greatest reason for being here, our bodies moved and burned
We discovered our reason for existence, moving and exerting our bodies in the natural world

There on our mountain bed of leaves we learned life's reason why
We understood the meaning of life while lying on our bed of leaves, connecting with nature

The people laugh and love and dream, they fight, they hate to die
In the valley below, people experience the same emotions as us even though they are ignorant about nature's beauty and the meaning of life

The smell of your hair I know is still there, if most of our leaves are blown
I can still smell your beautiful hair even if the leaves have withered away due to time

Our words still ring in the brush and the trees where singing seeds are sown
The echoes of our conversations still resonate in the forest long after we have gone

Your shape and form is dim but plain, there on our mountain bed
Although I cannot see your physical form anymore, the memory of you lying with me in the mountains is still vivid

I see my life was brightest where you laughed and laid your head
My life has been the happiest whenever I was with you and saw you smile

I learned the reason why man must work and how to dream big dreams
In the mountains, I learned the importance of working and dreaming big

To conquer time and space and fight the rivers and the seas
I wanted to conquer time, space, and nature's elements after being in the mountains

I stand here filled with my emptiness now and look at city and land
Now I stand filled with feelings of emptiness looking at the city and its vast lands

And I know why farms and cities are built by hot, warm, nervous hands
I understand now why people build farms and cities, driven by their emotions and passions

I crossed many states just to stand here now, my face all hot with tears
I have traveled great distances just to stand here now with tears streaming down my face

I crossed city, and valley, desert, and stream, to bring my body here
I traveled across cities, valleys, deserts, and streams to be in the same place where we lay together in the mountains

My history and future blaze bright in me and all my joy and pain
Memories of our time together, along with the joys and pains of my past and future, dazzle inside of me

Go through my head on our mountain bed where I smell your hair again
I keep replaying our moments together in the mountains, where I can still smell the fragrance of your hair

All this day long I linger here and on in through the night
I stay here as long as possible, both day and night

My greed's, desires, my cravings, hopes, my dreams inside me fight
My internal struggles, such as greed, desire, and hope, battle with each other

My loneliness healed, my emptiness filled, I walk above all pain
My loneliness and emptiness disappeared, leaving me free to walk without the burden of pain

Back to the breast of my woman and child to scatter my seeds again
I return to my family, a place where I can spread new life through my experiences in the mountains