Dar Williams: Calamity John

Come lovers, come loners, remember yourselves As lusty tempestuous fools When your dream was to conquer an ocean From your small secretarial pools When you stood at the gulf of unknowing When you saw the great tundra of time And you cried for the winds to come blowing And you called a monsoon from the tides of the moon 'Cause the roads were all dusty and dry Come lame dancing lonely tonight When what should appear in the distance Blown hither and yon it's Calamity John And hes coming to sweep you away---Aye I Aye Ayy He'll tear through the homefront, he'll lift you up laughing He'll blow every signpost away As the weather report says high drama With a five percent chance that he'll stay Now the floor starts to rock and the roof floats And your friends say he's bad for your health And they've warmed you about him on talk shows So you told him to pack, hit the road, don't come back And he says hey "Don't flatter yourself" ....and you say..... I am closing my door to the storm I am saving myself from its freedom I have put the chain on, oh calamity john I don't want you to dance me away---Aye I Aye Ayy So its seven months later you've bolted your hair back You're almost immune to the moon And at parties you stay in the kitchen Common sense with a big wooden spoon All at once you can feel the storm coming As you burst out into the old refrain To the sound of America drumming Call it pain, call it art, call it open your heart Let it go let it fly, let it rain(Oh yeah) He smiles and the clouds turn to black With the wind through the flowers come blowing The warning bell's on, "What's your name, Oh it's John", That's such an unusual name---Aye I Aye Ayy