G C D G


[Verse]
G                       C      G
Meriden months stuck in Indian summers.
    D            G             D                G
And Dad's on the line, but I'm fine. Here's the phone...
         G
Oh, it's floating away. It's going away on the tide.
G                        C               G
Crystalized wishes, like kids crying for Christmases,
D           G                D             G
ticking off lists with their pens in their fists
       G
before floating away, and going away on the tide.


[Chorus]
                    D
Running away on the back of a beast,
                            C
in a midnight charge down a broken beach.
                       Am7                                  G
The little stars, they spin the sharpest shards of light on down
       D
to the mouth of the sea.
                       C
In a morning curled up in a cab on the edge of the world,
    Am7                          G
the light's a fire of gold lying around.


[Verse]
G                              C          G
What, when you heard it - say, forward or furtive,
     D                G         D        G
transferred through a person or mystical blur -
        G
got you going away, got you floating away on the tide?
        G                        C           G
Through Bonner Road basements of Pitfall, of cave-ins,
   D         G            D                 G
of crackling tapes, cross fades... When the song ends
    G
I'm going away, floating away on the tide.


[Chorus]
                 D
Finding your way down the bloody beach,
                             C
with the burnt-out cars salt-licked by the sea,
                            Am7                           G
those slicked-out stars all screaming from a distant high remove.
       D
In the fizzed-out snow of a cathode screen
        C
I saw a broken ghost in an old soap scene.
          Am7                            G
I let his dead and dreamy eyes follow my moves.


[Verse]
    G                 C          G
And I had a vision of everything hidden
    D      G             D             G
but always around me. It fought me. It found me
      G
while going away, floating away on the tide.
G                             C            G
Shooting through time with my eyes getting glassy
    D              G             D         G
and lined, while I watch seasons rocketing past me.
        G
They're going away - a little more every day, all the time.


[Chorus]
     D
On a balcony, at the brilliant sea
          C
where all rivers meet, a voice spoke to me and said,
      Am7                                      G
These things have just got to be. I don't know why.


[Outro]

    And I said,
D
    Here's to the freeway flasher!
C
    Here's to the desperate dasher.
G
    Guard him. Keep him from crashing,
           D
    on his tear. I know you think you miss him.
C
    I know you think you knew him,
G
    but you were passing through him.
             D        G        D             G
    Light as air he's leaving. There... he's gone.