Name: Mary Across the Ocean
Duration: P00H04M58S
Description: This is a song about wanting to escape, and then later learning after the getaway that it wasn't so bad where you started.

Mary Across the Ocean

from No Outlet by Jeff Elbel + Ping

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about

This is a song about wanting to escape, and then later learning after the getaway that it wasn't so bad where you started.

lyrics

i could lend you a lesson from a long-toothed life
leave you face down and snoring in your dinner
if you care for a wager on the last in line
here's your easy money on the winner

when i harken back to those illinois nights
when i would sing to the crickets 'bout the l.a. lights ...
well, it must be the promised land is further west
but i couldn't swim that far

mary across the ocean
loving you with deep devotion
i've made a task reduction
wanting you my only function

so, i set off searching for the golden fleece
a destiny i could visualize 'pon
trade the mundane here for the romantic there
waiting just to the south of the horizon

i drove all day for mexico
but i broke down in texas north of el paso
left my vision of sleeping on the foreign soil
'cause i couldn't walk that far

mary across the border
left me here in deep disorder
i've made a task reduction
finding you my only function

tried to catch that dream
we never will
'cause these legs weren't made for standing still
old sisyphus; he laid the rule
we claw and strive
but we never arrive
if we did, we'd keep on going by

i've spent half of my life just trying to turn your head
from high school on to pushing thirty
the music's fine, but as i sell myself
it only leaves me feeling dirty

the truth of the matter is life's not half bad
still, we dream of experiences we've never had
i'd run through the pasture rolling thick and green
if that fence didn't climb so high

mary across the border
left me here in deep disorder
i've made a task reduction
finding you my only function
mary across the ocean
loving you with deep devotion
i've made a task reduction
wanting you my only function

credits

from No Outlet, released July 4, 2021

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Jeff Elbel + Ping Wheaton, Illinois

Thanks for visiting! We're proud to be your source for roots rock and roll storytelling with wit and heart. Remember our motto: "No band could love you half as much as Ping."

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