Delta Heat

I was born from the shimmer on the asphalt bend

The kind of heat that makes the angels and the devils friends

It's a pressure cooker climate, a beautiful disease

It gets inside your spirit, rustles through the trees

They tried to make me gentle, tried to make me sweet

But you can't grow up in this fire and accept defeat

So I move with the fury of a summer afternoon

Underneath a heavy, honey-colored Mississippi moon

They hear the drawl, they think it's slow, they think it's sleepin' deep

They don't know about the promises the thunder's sworn to keep

They see a hazy mirage, they never see the flame

But they're about to learn the sound and the spelling of my name

This ain't a warmth, my darlin', this a fever dream

The sweat and soul and power of a mighty, rising stream

They can't dilute this feeling, they can't outrun the rays

This is that Delta Heat that burns for days and days and days

This is the force that bends the steel and clarifies the soul

The kind of beautiful and dangerous that's beyond control.

I learned to talk in riddles and to fight with polished grace

To build a fortress in the heart of this forsaken place

They taught me to be silent, I learned to be a storm

To be the only source of shelter that could keep myself warm

My voice got its gravel from the backroad dust and stone

And every word I'm speaking is a seed that I have sown

To grow a different future from this haunted, hallowed ground

The loudest thing you've ever heard without a single sound

They hear the drawl, they think it's slow, they think it's sleepin' deep

They don't know about the promises the thunder's sworn to keep

They see a hazy mirage, they never see the flame

But they're about to learn the sound and the spelling of my name

This ain't a warmth, my darlin', this a fever dream

The sweat and soul and power of a mighty, rising stream

They can't dilute this feeling, they can't outrun the rays

This is that Delta Heat that burns for days and days and days

This is the force that bends the steel and clarifies the soul

The kind of beautiful and dangerous that's beyond control.

This pressure makes a diamond, or it makes a ghost

I looked at both and knew the one I wanted most

So let them fan their faces, let them call it rage

I call it turnin' my own fury to a brand new age.

This ain't a warmth, my darlin', this a fever dream

The sweat and soul and power of a mighty, rising stream

They can't dilute this feeling, they can't outrun the rays

This is that Delta Heat that burns for days and days and days

This is the force that bends the steel and clarifies the soul

The kind of beautiful and dangerous that's beyond control.