Rifles and Rosary Beads
You hold on to what you need
Vicodin, morphine dreams
Rifles and Rosary Beads
Yellow smoke orange haze
Blowin’ into my eyes
Whistling sunset bombs
I couldn’t trust the sky
Rifles and Rosary Beads
You hold on to what you need
Vicodin, morphine dreams
Rifles, Rosary Beads
White knuckles wrapped around
Blackness that has no sound
Bombed out schools and homes
Kids in the street alone
Mirrors frighten me
Don’t recognize what I see
The stranger with blood on his hands
Brother I’m not that man
Rifles and Rosary Beads
You hold on to what you need
Vicodin, morphine dreams
Rifles and Rosary Beads
Rifles and Rosary Beads
You hold on to what you need….
—Written by Joe Costello and Mary Gauthier. Visit Ms. Gauthier’s website to learn more about this song and the eponymous album from which it is drawn.
Author
Mary Veronica Gauthier (b. 1962) is a Grammy-nominated American folk singer-songwriter and author, whose songs have been covered by performers including Tim McGraw, Blake Shelton, Kathy Mattea, Boy George, Jimmy Buffett, Bettye Lavette, Candi Staton, and Amy Helm.
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The featured image is “The Survivor” (1950) by René Magritte.
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