(Chorus)
Wealthy the spirit that knows its own flight
Stealthy the hunter who slays his own fright
Blessed the traveler who journeys the length of the light

Outside the pull of gravity, beyond the spectral veil
Within our careful reasoning, we search to no avail
For the constant in the chaos, for the fulcrum in the void
Following a destiny our steps cannot avoid

(Repeat First Verse and Chorus)

In a spiral never-ending are we drawn towards the source
Spinning at the mercy of an unrelenting force
So we stare into the emptiness and fall beneath the weight
Circling the Nexus in a fevered dance with fate

(Chorus)  
 

Illinois
(Dan Fogelberg)
Souvenirs ~ 1974

Dusty day dawning three hours late
Open the curtains and let the rest wait
My mind goes running three thousand miles east
I may miss the harvest but I won't miss the feast

(Chorus)
And it looks like you're gonna
Have to see me again
And it looks like you're gonna
Have to see me again
And it looks like you're gonna
Have to see me again
Illinois...oh, Illinois
Illinois, Illinois

South California,your sun is too cold
It looks like your hills have been raped of their gold
I should have come out when I was first told
This lamb has got to return to the fold

(Chorus)
Illinois -- I'm your boy

Flat on the prairies, soil and stone
Stretching forever taking me home
'Cause I've got a woman who waits for me there
And I need a breath of that sweet country air

(Chorus)
Illinois, Illinois
Illinois -- I'm your boy  
 

The Last Nail
(Dan Fogelberg)
Captured Angel~ 1974

I saw you running ahead of the crowd
I chased but never thought I'd catch you
You said you loved me but you had to be free
And I let you
Why did I let you
We walked together through the gardens and graves
I watched you grow to be a woman
Living on promises that nobody gave to no one
They were given to no one

I started listening to the wind and the rain
You strained your ears but could hear nothing
One night I thought I heard them whisper my name
And I went running
I left a trail of footprints deep in the snow
I swore one day I would retrace them
But when I turned around I found that the wind
Had erased them
Now I'll never replace them

(Chorus)
Fly away, my sweet bird, over the land
Take life for all the freedom you can
But if you ever should need a man
Well, the offer still stands

I hear you've taken on a husband and child
And live somewhere in Pennsylvania
I never thought you'd ever sever the string
But I can't blame you none
So let the ashes fall and lay where they will
Just say that once you used to know me
One last time sing that old song we used to know
But this time sing
But this time sing a little more slowly

(Chorus)  
 

Dancing Shoes
(Dan Fogelberg)
Nether Lands ~ 1977

Dancing shoes on the wall above your bedside
Saw it all as we performed our pirouette
Fleshes fused as the flicker of the candles
Threw upon the wall a single silhouette
Tu es dans ma coeur et dans ma tete

Dancing shoes we have loved on distant beaches
Where the winter never reaches there we fell
Dying swan on the dawn you danced before me
Though your eyes were dark and stormy I stood still
Qui peut dire le faux et le reel

Dancing shoes though the distances divide us
There's a paradise inside us we can't lose
Me and you dance a 'pas de deux' forever
And I pray you never shed your dancing shoes
 

Paris Nocturne
(Dan Fogelberg)
Twin Sons Of Different Mothers ~ 1978
(Instrumental)
 

Beggar's Game
(Dan Fogelberg)
Phoenix ~ 1979

I saw her first in a beggar's game
Her eyes were wild but her laugh was tame
Those people knew her by another name
I knew that she'd be mine
I knew that she'd be mine
She took me in on a winter's night
The air was brittle and the moon was bright
My heart was heavy but her touch was light
Deep in the dance we wandered
Deep in my heart she fell

The candles glistened and the water gleamed
She drew a bath and the windows steamed
She looked like every woman ever dreamed
In the heart of a lonely man
In the heart of a lonely man

She took my blindness and she led me through
As night retreated and the daylight grew
And with the first rays of the sun I knew
Love had another captive
Love had another fool

(Chorus)
The spell is broken and the chains fall free
Finally my heart has come home to me
It seems I've waited an eternity

(Repeat First Verse)
(Repeat Second Verse And Chorus)  
 

The Reach
(Dan Fogelberg)
The Innocent Age ~ 1981

It's Maine, and it's Autumn, the birches have just begun turning
It's life and it's dying
The lobstermen's boats come returning with the catch of the day in their holds
And the young boys cold and complaining
The fog meets the beaches and out on the Reach it is raining
It's father and son, it's the way it's been done since the old days
It's hauling by hand ten miles out from the land where their chow waits
And the days get so lonely and long
and the seas grow so stormy and strong but...
The Reach will sing welcome as homeward they hurry along

(Chorus)
And the morning will blow away as the waves crash and fall
And the Reach like a siren sings as she beckons and calls
As the coastline recedes from view and the seas swell and roll
I will take from the Reach all that she has to teach
to the depths of my soul

The wind brings a chill, there's a frost on the sill in the morning
It creeps through the door
On the edge of the shore ice is forming
Soon the northers will bluster and blow
And the woods will be whitened with snowfall
And the Reach will lie frozen for the lost and unchosen to row

(Chorus)  
 

Tucson, Arizona (Gazette)
(Dan Fogelberg)
Windows And Walls ~ 1984

Tucson, Arizona rising in the heat like a mirage
Tony keeps his Chevy like a virgin locked in his garage
He brings it out at midnight and cruises down the empty boulevards
And he prowls the darkened alleys that snake between the city's thirsty yards
The lonely desert skies reflect the anger in his eyes and it is dawn

His father died of drinking and left five children sinking with his mom
His older brother Bobby never made it back from Viet Nam
With high school well behind him he lives at home and works this shitty job
And he thinks his '60 Chevy is the only true amigo that he's got
His heart is filled with sadness and his soul is like some ugly vacant lot

Mary Estelle Hanna came out from Louisiana for the sun
A deal gone bad in Dallas left her burned and broke and on the run
To make the rent and groceries she takes this job at $3.15 an hour
Serving shots of whiskey and tequila in some smoky red-neck bar
And she dreams some day she'll make her way to L.A. and become a movie star

Tony saw her working, he swallowed hard and asked her for a date
Mary laughed and answered "I would but every night I'm working late"
He said he had some cocaine that she could have if she'd just ride along
She said "what the hell, I may as well, I haven't had no fun in so damn long"
He picked her up at closing time they pulled out on the road and they were gone

Tony's mom got frantic when she found her son had not come home
Mary's roommate panicked and called the sheriff from a public phone
They asked her lots of questions
She tried her best to tell them what she saw
And late that night they found poor Mary lying in some narrow, dusty draw
And the coroner reported that she hadn't been deceased for very long

Two weeks on they found it buried to the windshield in the sand
There inside lay Tony with a small revolver in his hand
The papers simply stated it must have been the drugs that drove him mad
The neighbors speculated what could make a good boy go so bad
Well, it might have been the desert heat
It might have been the home he never had
   

Go Down Easy
(Jay Bolotin)
High Country Snows ~ 1985

Linda lost her lover in the early part of autumn
And she moved out to the country hoping all would be forgotten
The last time that I saw her she was makin’ sure the winter
Wouldn’t come through that old door frame
Where the door is several inches from the ground, the cold hard ground

(Chorus)
And it’s hard to go down easy
And it’s hard to keep from cryin’
And it’s hard to lose a lover in the early part of autumn

Well, she learned to cook the meals and she learned to start the fire
And she learned to make jewelry out of stones and precious metals
She sits down to the table with her friends and several others
And she tries real hard to never be alone

(Chorus)

Now the winter wind blows cold upon a fair and gentle soul
And she feels as if her time is passin’ easy
Her friends are sometimes lovers, though they’ll always be another
She thinks about when the night time lays on down

(Chorus twice)  
 

Sutter's Mill
(Dan Fogelberg)
High Country Snows ~ 1985

In the Spring of Forty-seven so the story it is told
Old John Sutter went to the mill site...found a piece of shining gold
Well, he took it to the city where the word like wildfire spread
And old John Sutter soon came to wish he’d left that stone in the river bed
For they came like herds of locusts...every woman, child and man
In their lumbering Conestogas they left their tracks upon the land

(Chorus)
Some would fail and some would prosper
Some would die and some would kill
Some would thank the Lord for their deliverance
And some would curse John Sutter’s Mill

Well, they came from New York City and they came from Alabam’
With their dreams of finding fortunes in this wild unsettled land
Well, some fell prey to hostile arrows as they tried to cross the plains
And some were lost in the Rocky Mountains with their hands froze to the reins
Oh...

(Chorus)

Well, some pushed on to California and others stopped to take their rest
And by the Spring of Eighteen-sixty they had opened up the west
And then the railroad came behind them and the land was plowed and tamed
When Old John Sutter went to meet his maker, he’d not one penny to his name
Oh...

(Chorus)
And some would curse John Sutter’s Mill
Some men’s thirsts are never filled
 
 
Song For A Carpenter
(Dan Fogelberg)
Previously unreleased

Oh, he makes his life as a carpenter
He works his hands in wood
And he lives the way his granddad might have liked and understood
He goes to work each morning and he comes home every night
And the time that passes in between he knows has been spent right

A child in South Ohio, a man in Northern Maine
He took his dream to the end of the world and he brought it home again
Here he met his sweet Rebeckah...here he came to make his stand
In a house he built in the piney woods where the ocean meets the land

(Chorus)
And it's hey-ho, steady as you go
Sing for the love of the land
Hey-ho, blessed is the home born of the carpenter's hand

Oh his hair is rough and curly and his legs they reach the ground
And his eyes are full of living and his back is broad and brown
And his heart is sure and stubborn and his pride's too strong to bend
And somewhere in his life he found the time to be my friend

(Chorus)

Oh he loves his sweet Rebeckah...he'll love her 'til his death
And she gave to him a bonny son and they named the child Seth
And now they are a family...a community of three
Living in the piney woods where the soil meets the sea

(Chorus)
Born of the carpenter's hand  
 

Forefathers
(Dan Fogelberg)
The Wild Places ~ 1990

They came from Scandinavia, the land of midnight sun
And crossed the North Atlantic when this century was young
They'd heard that in America every man was free
To live the way he chose to live and be who he could be
Some of them were farmers there and tilled the frozen soil
But all they got was poverty for all their earnest toil
They say one was a sailor who sailed the wide world round
Made home port, got drunk one night, walked off the pier and drowned

My mother was of Scottish blood, it's there that she was born
They brought her to America in 1924
They left behind the highlands and the heather-covered hills
And came to find America with broad expectant dreams and iron wills
My granddad worked the steel mills of central Illinois
His daughter was his jewel, his son was just his boy
For thirty years he worked the mills and stoked the coke-fed fires
And looked toward the day when he'd at last turn 65 and could retire

(Chorus)
And the sons become the fathers and their daughters will be wives
As the torch is passed from hand to hand
As we struggle through our lives
Though the generations wander, the lineage survives
And all of us, from dust to dust, we all become forefathers by and by

The woman and the man were wed just after the war
And they settled in this river town and three fine sons she bore
One became a lawyer and one fine pictures drew
And one became this lonely soul who sits here now
And sings this song for you

(Chorus)
By and By By and By  
 

River Of Souls
(Dan Fogelberg)
River Of Souls ~ 1993

I take my place along the shore and I wait for the tide
It seems I've passed this way before in an earlier time
I hear a voice like mystery blowing warm through the night
The silent moon embraces me and I'm drawn to her light
I follow footprints in the sand to a circle of stone
Find a fire burning bright 'though I came here alone
And in the play of shadows cast I can dimly discern
The shapes of all who've gone before calling me to return

(Chorus)
There are no names that fit these faces
There are no lines that can define these ancient spaces
The spirits dance across the ages
And melt into a river of souls

(Refrain Espagnole)
Lo que es mio (What is mine)
Lo que es de Dios (What is God's)
Lo que es del rio (What is the river's)
Melt into a river of souls

I take my place along the shore and I wait for the tide
It seems I've passed this way before in an earlier time
To every man the mystery sings a different song
He fills his page of history dreams his dream and is gone

(Chorus And  Refrain)  
 

Ever On
(Dan Fogelberg)
The Wild Places ~ 1990

May the trail rise up to meet you
May your heart rejoice in song
May the skies be fair above you
As you journey ever on
Ever on--ever on
Ever on--ever on

And in this planetary circle
We are but a single stone
Spinning on our fragile axis
Through the endless night alone
Ever on--ever on
Ever on--ever on
Ever on

May your love be there to guide us
May it always keep us strong
May we walk within your footsteps
As you lead us ever on
Ever on--ever on
Ever on--ever on
Ever on--ever on
Ever on--ever on
Ever on