Jason Isbell - Elephant

I wrote recently about what a great album Jason Isbell’s Southeastern is and mentioned the poignant song Elephant. I’ve obviously been listening to the album again and again, and this song too quite a bit: here it is in all its painful, powerful storytelling, but you do have to listen to hear what a truly beautiful lament this is and how it is a narrative about love, death and survival that will endure.

She said Andy you’re better than your past

winked at me and drained her glass

cross-legged on the barstool, like nobody sits anymore.

She said Andy you’re taking me home

but I knew she planned to sleep alone

I’d carry her to bed and sweep up the hair from the floor.

If I had fucked her before she got sick

I’d never hear the end of it

she don’t have the spirit for that now.

We drink these drinks and laugh out loud

bitch about the weekend crowd

and try to ignore the elephant somehow

somehow.

She said Andy you crack me up

Seagrams in a coffee sup

sharecropper eyes and her hair almost gone.

When she was drunk she made cancer jokes

she made up her own doctor’s notes

surrounded by her family I saw she was dying alone.

I’d sing her classic country songs

and she’d get high and sing along

she don’t have the voice to sing with now.

We’d burn these joints in effigy

cry about what we used to be

and try to ignore the elephant somehow

somehow.

I buried her a thousand times

giving up my place in line

but I don’t give a damn about that now.

There’s one thing that’s real clear to me

no one dies with dignity

we just try to ignore the elephant somehow

we just try to ignore the elephant somehow

we just try to ignore the elephant somehow

somehow

somehow.