Up the Wolves
Album: The Sunset Tree and Come, Come to the Sunset Tree
Lyrics
There's bound to be a ghost at the back of your closet
No matter where you live
There'll always be a few things, maybe[1]
several things
That you're gonna find really difficult to forgive
There's gonna come a day when you'll feel better[2]
You'll rise up free and easy on that day
And float from branch to branch, lighter than the air[3]
Just when that day is coming
Who can say?
Who can say?
Our mother has been absent
Ever since we founded Rome
But there's gonna be a party
When the wolf comes home
We're gonna commandeer the local airwaves
To tell the neighbors what's been going on
And they will shake their heads
And wag their bony fingers
In all the wrong directions
And by daybreak we'll be gone[4]
I'm gonna get myself in fighting trim[5]
Scope out every angle of unfair[6] advantage
I'm gonna bribe the officials
I'm gonna kill all the judges
It's gonna take you people years
To recover from all of the damage
Our mother has been absent
Ever since we founded Rome
But there's gonna be a party when the wolf comes home
Banter
- I'll tell you, oh, I know this song! [tunes] Nah, I need that D chord to sound good for this one. [more tuning] This is a song when people talk about triumph over adversity, adversity sounds like a faceless sort of a thing, that you don't actually need to triumph over so much as get around. This is a song about triumph over the adversary. (2013-07-26 Newport Folk Festival)
- This is a song about that burning thirst for revenge. Which is reputed to be very unhealthy. And I know that's true, but it doesn't help. You might envision your revenge in the form of a great hulking animal coming out of the darkness to eat those who have done you wrong. (2017-11-12 Brooklyn Steel)
- They used this one on a TV show. And I saw an ad today for that TV show announcing that it has come to an end. I thought, did they kill all the zombies? (2022-09-20 Saturn)
- With only the sick, sick, sick, sick fills, Mr. Jon Wurster! [Wurster plays cool drums, crowd cheers loudly and several cries of "SICK!!" are heard.] Sick. I should be better at staging, this is the last song on the set list, I should know what it is and go right into it, but I had to pause, and get, oh god I'm going to do this, and get, if you will, Down With The Sickness. That's by Disturbed, Peter. (2023-10-02 Belly Up Tavern)
- I dunno if you know this about me, but I bring some badass players with me. Isa Burke! [cheering] I wanna play, man I'll tell you, I wanna play a song off The Sunset Tree, [cheering] I'm gonna freestyle this. I'm gonna play a song from Sunset Tree, a song written by me, toward the end of 2003 [JD laughing]. I sent it to Peter and then I went on vacation to the Isle of Palms Sea, don't give me that look, Peter, that was a good one. [crowd hoots] I don't have another E rhyme, uh, something that would have to do with larceny, burglary, murder me, you know. Something like that. But I don't have those. But it's a fond memory, actually. I wrote this song - writing the Sunset Tree, as you might imagine, was kind of like, opening up little poison bottles in my brain. And you open one, and it feels funky, but you get something good out of it so you do it again. And it was getting real weird in my skull. And we had just moved to North Carolina, so my wife and I went to the beach for a week, and I had written this song, and I sent it to Peter, and he sent me an email, and he said, I know you're on vacation and I wasn't gonna bother you, but I really like my bass line for this. I am also very fond of this bass line. [ed: me too, long live Peter Peter Hughes] (2023-10-05 August Hall)
- Is the art car museum still here or did it fold? [cheers from the audience] Man. I have a lot of stories I could tell you about Houston. We used to get here early for the Art Car Rothko Chapel, get completely lost in the freeway trying to leave. I just unearthed a piece of my own pathology. Peter was sitting there, looking at me, and I was like, ah, fuck, I fucked up, I did something wrong. So I go over to Peter, ask, hey, what's up, what's wrong, and he goes, I lost the one. (2024-04-12 The Palace)
Live Performances
Footnotes
1. "maybe there will be several things" (2023-10-23, 2023-10-28, 2023-10-29)↩
2. Followed by "I can promise" (2017-11-12), "yes there will" (2023-10-02, 2023-10-03), "and that's true" (2019-05-07)↩
3. "lighter than the air itself" (2023-10-23)↩
4. Repeated "we will be gone"(2017-11-12, 2019-05-07, 2021-08-06, 2022-09-20, 2023-10-02, 2023-10-03, 2023-10-05, 2023-10-27, 2023-10-28)↩
5. Followed by "just for you" (2017-11-12), "it's already happening" (2021-08-06), "just wait and see"(2017-06-01), "yes I am" (2023-10-23, 2023-10-29), "you just wait and see" (2019-05-07)↩
6. "unforced" instead of "unfair" (2023-10-07)↩