My Hands Remember

Intro Forty years of the same motion and the motion knows me now Verse My hands remember the way my hands remember when my head has gone Half past five and I am not awake yet but the tools are already moving I could not tell you how I do it if you sat me down and asked The knowing isn't in the telling the knowing's in the hands Pre Chorus I didn't learn it in a morning I learned it in ten thousand Chorus My hands remember the way my hands remember the way Head can wander head can grieve hands go on and hands believe Post Chorus Same grip and the same angle same small turn against the grain Nobody taught me the last part the last part came from staying Verse My father put a plane into my hand when I was nine and it was heavy He said it will be light in twenty years and he was right about the twenty There is no short way into this there's no clever way around The only road into a craft is the long dull road of doing it Pre Chorus I didn't learn it in a morning I learned it in ten thousand Chorus My hands remember the way my hands remember the way Head can wander head can grieve hands go on and hands believe Post Chorus Same grip and the same angle same small turn against the grain Nobody taught me the last part the last part came from staying Verse The year I lost her I lost everything I could not read I could not eat But at seven in the morning I was standing at the bench And the hands did what the hands do and the day got made somehow I don't say that it healed me I say it carried me till healing came Bridge So build a thing into your body build it deep where thinking stops Then on the days you have got nothing you will find you still have that On the days you have got nothing you will find you still have that Verse And the young lad in the corner thinks I'm clever with the wood I'm not clever I'm just old at it and old at it is better Break My hands remember Chorus My hands remember the way my hands remember the way Head can wander head can grieve hands go on and hands believe Post Chorus Same grip and the same angle same small turn against the grain Nobody taught me the last part the last part came from staying Outro My hands remember my hands remember when there's nothing left to know My hands remember my hands remember and they carry me home