Death took the husband of a neighbor of mine

On a highway with a drunk at the wheel

She told me keep your clean hands off the laundry he left

And don't tell me you know how I feel

She had a tape that he'd sent her from a Holiday Inn

That she never played much in the day

But when I heard him say I love you through the window at night

I just stayed the hell away



Chorus:

There's a hole in the middle in the middle of the prettiest life

So the lawyers and the prophets say

Not your father nor your mother nor your lover's ever gonna make it go away

Now there's too much darkness in an endless night

To be afraid of the way we feel

Let's be kind to each other

Not forever but for real



My father never put his parachute on

In the pacific back in World War II

He said he'd rather go down in familiar flame

Than get lost in that endless blue

Well some of that blue got into my eyes

And we never stopped fighting that war

Until I first understood about endlessness

And I loved him like never before



There's a hole in the middle in the middle of the prettiest life

So the lawyers and the prophets say

Not your father nor your mother nor your lover's ever gonna make it go away

Now there's too much darkness in an endless night

To be ashamed of the way we feel

Let's be kind to each other

Not forever but for real



Lucky my daughter got her mother's nose

And just a little of her father's eyes

And we've got just enough love

That when the longing takes me

It takes me by surprise

And I remember that longing from my highway days

When I never could give it a name

And it's lucky that I discovered in the nick of time

That the woman and the child aren't to blame



For the hole in the middle of a pretty good life

I only face it 'cause it's here to stay

Not my father nor my mother nor my daughter nor my lover

Nor the highway made it go away

But now there's too much darkness in an endless night

to be afraid of the way I feel

I'll be kind to my loved ones

Not forever but for real



Some say god is a lover, some say it's an endless void

And some say both, and some say she's angry

And some say just annoyed

But if god felt a hammer in the palm of his hand

Then god knows the way we feel

And then love lasts forever

Forever and for real