The summer ends and we wonder where we are
And there you go, my friends, with your boxes in your car
And you both look so young
And last night was hard, you said
You packed up every room
And then you cried and went to bed
But today you closed the door and said
"We have to get a move on.
It's just that time of year when we push ourselves ahead,
We push ourselves ahead."

And it was cloudy in the morning
And it rained as you drove away
And the same things looked different
It's the end of the summer
It's the end of the summer,
When you move to another place

And I feel like the neighbor's girl who will never be the same
She walked alone all spring,
She had a boyfriend when the summer came
And he gave her flowers in a lightning storm
They disappeared at night in green fields of silver corn
And sometime in July she just forgot that he was leaving
So when the fields were dying, she held on to his sleeves
She held on to his sleeves

And she doesn't want to let go
'Cause she won't know what she's up against
The classrooms and the smart girls
It's the end of the summer
It's the end of the summer
When you hang your flowers up to dry

And I had a dream it blows the autumn through my head
It felt like the first day of school
But I was going to the moon instead
And I walked down the hall
With the notebooks they got for me
My dad led me through the house
My mom drank instant coffee
And I knew that I would crash
But I didn't want to tell them
There are just some moments when your family makes sense
They just make sense

So I raised up my arms and my mother put the sweater on
We walked out on the dark and frozen grass
The end of the summer
It's the end of the summer
When you send your children to the moon

The summer ends and we wonder who we are
And there you go, my friends, with your boxes in your car
And today I passed the high school, the river, the maple tree
I passed the farms that made it
Through the last days of the century
And I knew that I was going to learn again
Again, in this less hazy light
I saw the fields beyond the fields
The fields beyond the fields

And the colors are much brighter now
It's like they really want to tell the truth
We give our testimony to the end of the summer
It's the end of the summer,
You can spin the light to gold.


Lyrics submitted by aur0ra

Iowa Lyrics as written by Dar Williams

Lyrics © BMG Rights Management

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Iowa (Traveling III) song meanings
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    General Comment

    This is one of my all time favorite songs for so many reasons. The idea of going to any limit for your heart really touches me. The idea that love is so fragile and painful and beautiful touches me.

    I once made a trip from Cincinnati to Omaha and the first day of the trip was horrible--all flat and farms that looked the same. Beautiful in their own right as they may have been, it got a little boring. And then I hit Iowa and it was hilly and green and curvy and I remember being so moved by it's beauty. Iowa was my favorite part of the whole trip.

    Sometimes it feels like my whole life is about running...not necessarily away, but all the meaning in my life is mapped out in distance and given names like Dallas and Athens and especially Chicago...and sometimes this song just feels like getting past all of that, all of the past and all of the heartache and making it to somewhere beautiful.

    I might not be there and maybe I'm still the same girl who'd go to any length for boys I shouldn't. And maybe I'll never learn. But it still feels good to hear this song and be somewhere else for a moment.

    shanieron March 01, 2006   Link

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