Josh Ritter

The new CD, The Animal Years, is out this week. Some of the songs nail the apocalyptic spirit of the times with more flair than a Kevin Phillips ever could. This is a stanza from 'Thin Blue Flame,' a nine-minute rant:

I woke beneath the clear blue sky
Sun it shouts the breeze aside
The old home town and the streets I knew
Wrapped up in a royal blue
I heard my friends laughing out across the fields
Girls in the gloamin' and the birds in the wheel
The raw smell of horses and the warm smell of hay
Cicadas electric in the heat of the day
A run of three sisters in the flush of the land
The lake was a diamond in the valley's hand
The straight of the highway in the scattered out hearts
They were coming together they were pulling apart
And angels everywhere were in my midst
The ones that I loved and the ones that I kissed
I wondered what it was I'd been looking for above
Heaven's so big there aren't no need to look up
So I stopped looking for royal cities in the air
Only a full house gonna have a prayer