way I should, the

IRIS DEMENT

Born: January 5, 1961
Genres: Country (Alternative Country), Folk

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lyrics

6

the way I should
(Iris Dement)

A cold wind against my shoulder woke me up in the middle
Of the night
An autumn leaf was scraping against my window
Like it was tyrin’ hard to get inside
And then a ghost that I had met before kept me up till dawn
And everything I thought was right was suddenly all wrong
He said “Your score is lookin’ pretty bad”
Then he asked me what it was that I had to show

So I went runnin’ down a list of things
Some were real, but on some of them I lied
‘Cause I felt I had to justify each breath that I’d been
Breathin’ in this life
Then I realized I was playing into someone else’s rules
Tryin’ to keep my score up in a game I did not choose
Then I looked that ghost straight in the eye and said
“You’d better not be comin’ back by again”

Chorus:
And it’s true that I don’t work near as hard
As you tell me that I’m supposed to
I don’t run as fast as I could
But I live just the way I want to
And that’s the way I should

October’s leaves were dancin’ ‘round
Like angels dressed in robes of red and gold
But November’s come and gone now
And they’re lyin’ in the gutter out along the road
They’re gonna make their way out to the ditch or someday
To the sea
But they’ll get to where they’re goin’ without the help of
You or my
And if each life is just a grain of sand
I’m tellin’ you man, this grain of sand is mine
Repeat Chorus

©1996 Songs of Iris ASCAP

notes

³ source: database by Wolf-Dieter Mattick

Taken from the booklet:
...

While getting these songs was often like walking through hell, recording them was the trip to heaven. I spent four days in the studio with Randy Scrugga and six musicians: Steuart Smith, Chuck Leavell, Dave Pomeroy, Tammy Rogers, John Jennings, Harry Stinson and one engineer - Chuck Ainlay. We recorded 11 songs. Everything we did is here. Everybody got along. And, thanks in large part to Randy, everybody felt free to contribute ideas, and did. It was fun; it felt natural and I was sad toi see it end. They said they were too, and I beliebe them.
Over the next couple of weeks, some other talented and sometimes legendary people came by and did what they do with the tape running: Eral Scruggs, Delbert McClinton, Mark Knopfler, Lonnie Mack, Paul Franklin, Brent Mason, Tom Roady and a few singers - Bekka Bramlett, Billy Burnette, Russ Taff and Melodie Crittenden - who, along everybody else, made me sound a lot better.

...

So long.

Iris
May, 1996
Kansas City, Missouri, USA

revised
17.07.2019