a baby with a baby just barely seventeen my mother mourned her innocence as she bounced on her knee a daddy on the road added to the tears and trials like silver rain they fell upon this melancholy child the sounds of my childhood still linger in my song my mother s lullaby that train that rain behind our home a whippoorwill on a windowsill it should have made me smile but everything sounds lonely to a melancholy child now a restless blood runs in our family i thought i could outrun the emptiness inside of me so i went a little crazy and i went a little wild trying to outdistance my own melancholy child i met a kind and gentle man who thinks the world of me when he looks my way it s a woman that he sees but when i can t explain to him the tears that fill my eyes he takes me in his arms and rocks his melancholy child you take a black irish temper and some solemn cherokee a southern sense of humor and you got someone like me there are thorns on every rose to this i m reconciled they re just a little sharper to a melancholy child and in my own babe s eyes i see the signs of a melancholy child heaven help us all another melancholy child 