(lyrics are written by Greg Brown)

No one knows too much about these woods
If they got lost they wouldn't know where to go
Tribesmen gone a long time,
Small farmers got blowed out
Maybe there ain't even that much left to know
You can strip the trees, fowl the streams
Try to hide in a progressive dream
Ease into the comfort that kills
Before I do that I'll grab my pack
And disappear with Billy from the Hills

Blood flows back and back and back and back
Like a river from a secret source
I feel the wild in me, I pitch my camp
At the fork where knowledge meets remorse
Women singing me that song from the ancient choir
I just open my mouth and what comes out
Gives me the chills
I got my song from a secret place
I got my face from Billy from the Hills

Forty inch barrel on that shotgun
Steel traps and the cane pack on his back
Eighteen years old, surrounded by the Ozarks
Ain't one little bit of that boy that's slack
If you're looking for a helping hand
He'll give you one, you know he will
If you're looking for trouble, uh uh, turn around
You don't wanna mess with Billy from the Hills

Some folks dance cool, all angles and swaying hips
Sensual as all get out and in
Me, I'm a hick and I dance like one
I just kinda jump around and grin
I know a guy, he doesn't dance too much
But when he does, he gives everyone a thrill
You might run away or suck it up and stay
When he dances, Billy from the Hills

There's a lantern lit on a Missouri night
A woman writing poem by stove
She knows the foxes whereabouts
By knoll, by gulch, by yelp
As he runs at night through her mother-love
Her memory to me is like a watercress from a
Spring-fed stream, fresh and aching
As a mockingbirds trill
She lives in me, I try to look until I can see for her
And her boy, Billy from the Hills

It's a drifting time, people fascinated with screens
No idea what's on the other side
We stare at doom like an uptight groom
And live our lives like a drunken bride
Tonight I feel something on the wind, deep inside
Where we have to die or kill
Something I know I didn't know I knew I learned from
Billy from the Hills.
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Thanks to (Jeremy Cooney) for correcting these lyrics. Apr 2, 2008