From the recording The Midnight Commander
Lyrics
The Phoenix drives a Thunderbird, anything else would be absurd
At first I thought the car was black, but later not so sure
A cold and graveyard kind of night, cheap Formica, fluorescent light
When that car pulled up with a driver, in torn and faded jeans
He looked half dead when he came on in, sat at the counter and tried a grin
“Coffee, please, strong and black” were the only words he said
So I cleaned the grill while he drank it down and he sang to himself in that one-horse town
On a nameless road, on a nameless night, in a faded, desert diner
He said I rise…
“Looks like better days have passed you by,” he said as he ate some apple pie
His face a sunburned road map of everywhere he’d been
“That’s true enough for both of us, but I let them go without a fuss
Because some of us peak early, and it’s all downhill from there.”
But he shook his head, said “You’ve got it wrong, darkness comes before the dawn
Dying is easy, rising is hard, but it’s what you’re made to do.”
We sat there a bit and he grew frail and brittle as a rusty coffin nail
And the wind was blowing colder, hammering at the door
He said “Listen here, and learn from me, don’t believe everything you see
There are things beyond my pay grade, but I can tell you this:
Each empty day and lonely night, waits for you to call the light
And take the place of sunrise, on any path you choose.”
And I rise… I hope I rise…
At 5:00 a.m. he was almost gone, hunched over the counter, his face was drawn
And his eyes were sick and sad, staring out the big class window
Slowly as the sky turned grey he smiled at me but he turned away
And like smoke he was gone but then fire and glory burned the land and sky
The engine of the Thunderbird roared to live and as I turned
He laughed he flared into the sun and the road was suddenly bare
A feather lay upon the floor, a burning ember by the door
Now in the darkness I hold it tight, threw away the bottle that held back the night
And I listen for the coming dawn, singing in the sky
And I rise… every day, I rise…