Hell‐On Songtext
von Neko Case

God is not a contract
Or a guy
God is an unspecified tide
You cannot time it′s tables
It sets no glass or gables
God is
A lusty tire fire
It's bristles scrape and strike the stage
Rock, paper, scissors, rage.
Have mercy on the natural world

My voice is not
The liquid waves
The perfect rings round a heron′s legs.
My voice a straight garroting wire
A stolen mile of fingerprints
Peeled up quiet from their dunes
Captured and respooled as ruin
To be used
At a different time


My voice is a fracture
Of a shin bone's lust
Pounding barefoot ground
It lifts you up and sets you just.
Just at sorrow's waterline
I drape you on tomorrow′s plate
Ferrous, metal marrow spilling
Not yours, but mine.
iI′m an agent
Of the natural word

Don't you tell me
I didn′t warn you
That that's some gravity
You ought not to play with

Don′t you tell me
I didn't warn you
That that′s some gravity
You ought not to play with

There's nothing quite so poison
As a promise
There's nothing quite so poison
As a promise
There′s nothing quite so poison
As a promise
There′s nothing quite so poison
As a promise


And me?
I am not a mess
I'm a wilderness, yes.
The undiscovered continent
For you to undress

But you′ll not be my master
You're barely my guest
You don′t have permission
To take any pictures
Be careful
Of the natural world

Nature can't amend it′s ways
It boils hell-on and then replays
Despite heartfelt springtimes of regret
The storm she still cries for days

Have mercy on the natural world