the stranger at my door

Brandi Carlile

I have seen the firewatcher's daughter
Watching fires burn from smoke to black
There's nothing she won't burn
From Styrofoam to urns, to someone else's ashes in a sack

You can scorch the metal, you can even melt the glass
You can pass the time here, fire lives into the past
An all-consuming flame, that refines and new begins
It'll take your family heirlooms, but it can take your darkest sins

It's a good ol' bedtime story, give you nightmares 'til you die
And the ones that love to tell it, hide the mischief in their eyes
Condemn their sons to Hades
And Gehenna is full of guys, alive and well
But there ain't no hell for a firewatcher's daughter

We exercise the demons of the things we used to know
The gnashing of the teeth become the remnants of our homes
We think we're moving on, from materials we long
To forget we ever sold our souls to own

There's a chilling absolution that we're given from our birth
A powerful delusion and a plague upon the earth
But nothing scares me more
Than the stranger at my door
Who I fail to give shelter, time, and worth

It's a good ol' bedtime story, give you nightmares 'til you die
And the ones that love to tell it, hide the mischief in their eyes
Condemn their sons to Hades
And Gehenna is full of guys, alive and well
But there ain't no hell for a firewatcher's daughter