Thin Blue Flame Chords

Capo 1st fret

Standard (EADGBE)

CI became a thin blue wireF

That held the world above the fire

And so it was I saw behind

Heaven’s just a thin blue line

 If God’s up there hAme’s in a cold dark room

 The heavenly host are just theC cold dark moons

 He bent down and made the woFrld in seven days

 And ever since he’s been a’waClking away

Mixing with nitrogen in lonely holes

Where neither seraphim or raindrops go

I see an old man wandering the halls alone

Only a full house gonna make a home C

CI became a thin blue streaFm

The smoke between asleep and dreams

And in that clear blue undertow

I saw Royal City far below

 Borders soft with reAmfugees

 Streets a’swimming with Camputees

 It’s a Bible or a bullet theyF put over your heart

 It’s getting harder and harderC to tell them apart

Days are nights and the nights are long

Beating hearts blossom into walking bombs

And those still looking in the clear blue sky for a sign

Get missiles from so high they might as well be divine

Now the wolves are howling at our door

Singing bout vengeance like it’s the joy of the Lord

Bringing justice to the enemies not the other way round

They’re guilty when killed and they’re killed where they’re found

If what’s loosed on earth will be loosed up on high

It’s a Hell of a Heaven we must go to when we die

Where even Laurel begs Hardy for vengeance please

The fat man is crying on his hands and his knees

Back in the peacetime he caught roses on the stage

Now he twists indecision takes bourbon for rage

Lead pellets peppering aluminum

Halcyon, laudanum and Opium

Sings kiss thee hardy this poisoned cup

His winding sheet is busy winding up

In darkness he looks for the light that has died

But you need faith for the same reasons that it’s so hard to find

And this whole thing is headed for a terrible wreck

And like good tragedy that’s what we expect

C F x4

 At night I mAmake plans for a city laid down

 Like the hips of a girl on the sCpring covered ground

 Spirals and capitals like the twisFt of a script

 Streets named for heroes that couldC almost exist

The fruit trees of Eden and the gardens that seem

To float like the smoke from a lithium dream

Cedar trees growing in the cool of the squares

The young women walking in the portals of prayer

And the future glass buildings and the past an address

And the weddings in pollen and the wine bottomless

And all wrongs forgotten and all vengeance made right

The suffering verbs put to sleep in the night

The future descending like a bright chandelier

And the world just beginning and the guests in good cheer

In Royal City I fell into a trance

Oh it’s hell to believe there ain’t a hell of a chance

Am C F C x2

C F x2

CI woke beneath a clear blue skyF

The sun a shout the breeze a sigh

My old hometown and the streets I knew

Were wrapped up in a royal blue

 I heard my friends laughing outAm across the fields

 The girls in the gloaming and the Cbirds on the wheel

 The raw smell of horses and the waFrm smell of hay

 Cicadas electric in the heat Cof the day

A run of Three Sisters and the flush of the land

And the lake was a diamond in the valley’s hand

The straight of the highway and the scattered out hearts

They were coming together they pulling apart

And angels everywhere were in my midst

In the ones that I loved in the ones that I kissed

I wondered what it was I’d been looking for up above

Heaven is so big there ain’t no need to look up

So I stopped looking for royal cities in the air

Only a full house gonna have a prayer

Am C F C x6 end Am