Tip of My Tongue

Editor's Note: I fell in love with this song the first time I heard it.  The lyrics are unmistakably Mark Heard.  The catch is I heard the song for the first time, on a Mark Heard tribute album.  The album was primarily put together by the founding members of the band, The Choir.  Below the lyrics you'll their version of the song on Spotify.

"Tip of My Tongue" |  Satellite Sky ~Mark Heard

There's an oasis in the heat of the day 
There's a fire in the chill of night 
A turnabout in circumstance makes each a hell in its own right

I've been boxed-in in the lowlands, in the canyons that think 
I've been pushed to the brink of the precipice and dared not to blink 
I've been confounded in the whirlwind of what-ifs and dreams 
I've been burned by the turning of the wind back upon my own flames

Knock the scales from my eyes 
Knock the words from my lungs 
I want to cry out 
It's on the tip of my tongue

I've seen through the walls of this kingdom of dust 
Felt the crucial revelation 
But the broad streets of the heart and the day-to-day meet 
at a blind intersection

I don't want to be lonely, I don't want to feel pain 
I don't want to draw straws with the sons of Cain 
You can take it as a prayer if you'll remember my name 
You can take it as the penance of a profane saint

Knock the scales from my eyes 
Knock the words from my lungs 
I want to cry out 
It's on the tip of my tongue

There's an oasis in the heat of the day 
There's fire in the chill of night 
And when I know them both, I'll know your love - 
I will feel it in the twilight

As circumstance comes crashing through my walls like a train 
Or like a chorus from the mountains of the ocean floor 
Like the wind-burst of birdwings taking flight in a hard rain 
Or like a mad dog on the far side of Dante's Door

Knock the scales from my eyes 
Knock the words from my lungs 
I want to cry out 
It's on the tip of my tongue