Lyrics

Kim Beggs | Lyrics from Wanderer’s Paean

Banks of the Yukon

by Kim Beggs

Kim Beggs - vocals, guitar
Bob Hamilton - vocals, upright bass
Natalie Edelson - vocals
Burke Carroll - pedal steel
Annie Avery - harmonium

He was walkin’ in his sleep
On a trail as old as the river
Sleepy Hollow people light
Their lanterns when it’s night
On the banks of the Yukon
Gonna call him in for tea

It’s burnin’ cold outside
His weeping frozen to his face
Ice fog climbs over the bank where there’s woebegone
It can smell a broken heart
From miles and years away

It finds him and wraps him
And licks his whiskey tears away
This blanket of frozen tears, the ghost of river sorrow
Oh his darling, he’s lost without her
The river, took her broken heart last spring

He was walkin’ with no pain

He remembers her lovin’
The smell of her on him is gone
He’ll come in winter to cry the ghost of river sorrow
In his heart he hopes she’ll be there
His darling, if he could hold her once more

He was walkin’ in a dream