Description

Riverside Childhood (Version 2)

[Verse 1]

Bare feet on the river stones

School bags tossed in the dust

We’d dare each other in the cold green water

Trust was easy to trust

Race the sun up the scrubby hillside

Grass stains all on our knees

Someone shouting that the sky looked endless

We just shouted back

“agreed”

[Chorus]

Take me back to the riverside childhood

Where the days ran wide and slow

Where the sunset painted our small town golden

Till our shadows had to go

All the streets

All the waves

All the rain-soaked laughter

I still feel it in my veins

Riverside childhood

In the rearview mirror

But it’s flowing through me the same

[Verse 2]

Clear days

We owned those cracked old pavements

Chalk lines

Skinned-up palms

Trading secrets at the corner shop window

Mouths turned blue from the balm

After rain

We’d chase the drifting seagulls

Down where the wet sand shone

Building castles till the tide broke through them

Cheering as they were gone

[Chorus]

Take me back to the riverside childhood

Where the days ran wide and slow

Where the sunset painted our small town golden

Till our shadows had to go

All the streets

All the waves

All the rain-soaked laughter

I still feel it in my veins

Riverside childhood

In the rearview mirror

But it’s flowing through me the same

[Bridge]

We thought it would last forever (didn’t we?)

Names carved small in the bark of that tree

Years washed past like a long

Dark sea

But those small-town skies still live in me

[Chorus]

Take me back to the riverside childhood

Just one more late-warm day

Let the hillside hold our tired breathing

Till the light all slips away

All the streets

All the waves

All the rain-soaked laughter

I still call them by their names

Riverside childhood

I was just a kid

But you made me who I became