John Prine

I wish you love and happiness
I guess i wish you all the best
I wish you don't do like i do
And ever fall in love with someone like you
Cause if you fell just like i did
You'd probably walk around the block like a little kid.
But kids don't know they can only guess
How hard it is to wish you happiness

I guess that love is like a christmas card
You decorate a tree you throw it in the yard
It decays and dies and the snowmen melt
Well i once knew love i knew how love felt
Yeah i knew love love knew me
And when i walked love walked with me
And i got no hate and i got no pride
Well i got so much love that i cannot hide

Say you drive a chevy say you drive a ford
You say you drive around the town till you just get bored
Then you change your mind for something else to do
And your heart gets bored with your mind and it changes you
Well it's a doggone shame and it's an awful mess
I wish you love i wish you happiness
I wish you love i wish you happiness
I guess i wish you all the best

It was christmas in prison
And the food was real good
We had turkey and pistols
Carved out of wood
And i dream of her always
Even when i don't dream
Her name's on my tongue
And her blood's in my stream.

Chorus:
Wait awhile eternity
Old mother nature's got nothing on me
Come to me
Run to me
Come to me, now
We're rolling
My sweetheart
We're flowing
By god!

She reminds me of a chess game
With someone i admire
Or a picnic in the rain
After a prairie fire
Her heart is as big
As this whole goddamn jail
And she's sweeter than saccharine
At a drug store sale.

Chorus:

The search light in the big yard
Swings round with the gun
And spotlights the snowflakes
Like the dust in the sun
It's christmas in prison
There'll be music tonight
I'll probably get homesick
I love you. goodnight.

Chorus:

Pretty paper
Pretty ribbons of blue.

(spoken) man oh man,
I just love christmas
It's just so darn neat.
I kinda wish every day was christmas,
Except christmas eve and the fourth of july.
We wouldn't want to miss out on the fireworks, would we?
When i was a kid, we used to get the christmas catalog from montgomery wards in chicago.
Sometimes we'd get it as early as late august.
It was the big book of wishes, hopes and desires.
My three brothers and i were allotted twenty-five bucks a piece, including tax.
So i'd make up a different christmas list every night
From the first of september 'til the twenty-forth of december.
Matter of fact, let me present you with my christmas credentials.
When i was three years old, at least that's what my mother told me,
I ate an entire ornament. i ate a big red one, i thought it was an apple.
They kinda freaked out and was gonna take me to the hospital
But they couldn't stop me from laughing so they just left me alone.
So i guess i still got that christmas in me all the time, you know?

One year, i got a wooden roly-poly for christmas,
You know the things you knock down and they bounce right back up.
They made 'em out of wood back then, that's how old i am.
Nowadays, they make 'em out of plastic.
My mom says "they just don't make 'em like that anymore". and i says, "no ma they don't".

Then there was the year i came home only eave from the army,
From germany to marry my highschool sweetheart on the day after christmas.
My little brother billy, who was twelve at the time,
Had just gotten his first job so he was able to afford to buy some christmas presents
For his brothers and his mom and dad out of his own pocket.
Billy had a job selling subscriptions for the chicago tribune.
He told me this guy named rocky would pick him up in a station wagon,
Him and some other boys, and he'd take 'em out to some strange neighborhood
And drop 'em off and he gave them this whole spiel to give their potential customers.
Supposedly their little brother had won a free trip to our nation's capital washington, d.c.,
But he couldn't go on the trip if his older brother wouldn't accompany him
So if you would please buy a subscription to the chicago tribune then my little brother will be happy.
Wow, what a shyster! some people'll do anything to get to the whitehouse.

Then there was the year that my mom and dad gave me my first guitar.
Ah man it was gorgeous, i still got the thing.
It was a like aqua blue. kinda dark aqua blue with a cream colored heart. was a silvertone from montgomery wards. the model was called kentucky blue and man when i saw that sitting under the tre
Ust couldn't wait.
First year so i didn't know how to play it,
I'd just stand in from of the mirror with a string around my neck with that guitar and i'd try to look like elvis.
Then my brother dave taught me a couple of chords,
Now i'm here in your living room singing and talking to you.
It's funny how things work out.

So-a whyn't you go find a stranger and extend your hand to 'em.
If you see somebody looks like they ain't doin' quite as well as you, slip 'em a buck,
'specially if they don't ask for spare change.
Go buy your honey a cuckoo clock or a musical snow shaking water ball,
That when you wind it up it plays,
"i want you, i need you, i love ya with all my heart."
'cause after all, hell man, it's christmas.

Away in a manger no crib for a bed.
The little lord jesus lay down his sweet head.
The stars in the sky look down where he lay.
The little lord jesus asleep on the (1-2) hay.

(spoken) merry christmas everybody.
(words finally transcribed by fancy nancy)

If you were the woman and i was the man
Would i send you yellow roses?
Would i dare to kiss your hand?
In the morning would i caress you
As the wind caresses the sand,
If you were the woman and i was the man?

If i was the heart and you were the head
Would you think me very foolish
If one day i decided to shed
These walls that surround me
Just to see where these feelings led,
If i was the heart and you were the head?

If i was the woman and you were the man
Would i laugh if you came to me
With your heart in your hand
And said, "i offer you this freely
And will give you all that i can
Because you are the woman
And i am the man?"