[Josh Ritter plays]

Josh Ritter: This song is called “Change of Time,” and it’s from “So Runs the World Away.”

I had a dream last night; I dreamt that I was swimming

And the stars up above, directionless and drifting

And somewhere in the dark were the sirens and the thunder

And around me as I swam, the drifters who’d gone under

Time love, time love, time love. 

Time love, time love, time love, it’s only a change of time. 

I had a dream last night, and rusting far below me

Battered hulls and broken hardships

Leviathan and lonely

I was thirsty so I drank, and though it was salt water

There’s something about the way it tasted so familiar

Time love, time love, time love

Time love, time love, time love, it’s only a change of time. 

The black clouds I’m hanging, this anchor I’m dragging

The sails of memory rip open in silence

We cut through the lowlands, all hands through the saltlands

The white caps of memory, confusing and violent.

I had a dream last night, when I opened my eyes

Your shoulder blade your spine were shorelines in the moonlight

New worlds for the weak, new lands for the living

I could make it if I tried; I closed my eyes, I kept on swimming

Time love, time love, time love, it’s only a change of time love

Time love, time love, it’s only a change of time love,

Time, time love it’s only a change of time love, time love,

It’s only a change of love—seas that carry me wherever I go

Rough seas, they carry me wherever I go,

Rough seas they carry me wherever I go,

Rough seas, they carry me wherever I go.

Recorded April 5, 2010
Interviewed by Austin rnAllen