Happens to the Heart

I was always workin' steady but I never called it art

I got my shit together meeting Christ and reading Marx

It failed my little fire but it spread a dying spark

Go tell the young Messiah what happens to the heart

There's a mist of summer kisses where I tried to double park

The rivalry was viscious, the women were in charge

It was nothing, it was business, but it left an ugly mark

I've come here to revisit what happens to the heart

I was selling holy trinkets, I was dressing kind of sharp

I let pussy in the kitchen and a panther in the yard

In the prison of the gifted I was friendly with the guards

So I never had to witness what happens to the heart

I shoulda seen it coming, after all I knew the chart

Just to look at her was trouble, it was trouble from the start

Sure we played a stunning couple, but I never liked the part

It ain't pretty, it ain't subtle, what happens to the heart

Now the angel's got a fiddle, the devil's got a harp

Every soul is like a minnow, every mind is like a shark

May have broken every window, but the house

The house is dark, I care but very little

What happens to the heart

Then I studied with this beggar, he was filthy, he was scarred

By the claws of many women he had failed to disregard

No fable here, no lesson, so singing meadowlark

Just a filthy beggar guessing what happens to the heart

I was always workin' steady, but I never called it art

It was just some old convention like the horse before the cart

I had no trouble betting on the flood against the Ark

You see, I knew about the ending, what happens to the heart

I was handy with a rifle, my father's 303

I fought for something final, not the right to disagree