The Five-Dollar Sermon

[Verse 1]
The floodlights bleached the Ferris wheel at the fairgrounds white,
Your hand in my pocket, counting quarters in the night.
The smell of diesel mixing with the popcorn stand,
Just two kids walking on that hardpan Imperial land.
You pointed at the Tilt-a-Whirl, a blur of reds and blues,
I felt the lonely nickel sitting in my shoe.

[Chorus]
And you preached a sermon with no words at all,
How a man with nothing can be ten feet tall.
Your love's the only currency that I can spend,
It's the headgate opening and the drought's dead end.

[Verse 2]
That second Tuesday back in 'ninety-three,
Everywhere I looked was something that was not for me.
A glass case full of silver, a bright stuffed bear to win,
A future I couldn't buy my way into back then.
"My feet are tired anyway," is what you said,
While all my broke-man's promises screamed in my head.

[Chorus]
And you preached a sermon with no words at all,
How a man with nothing can be ten feet tall.
Your love's the only currency that I can spend,
It's the headgate opening and the drought's dead end.

[Bridge]
Now I got folding money, crisp and clean and new,
But all it does is buy me another memory of you.
There's dust on the dashboard and I drive these roads alone,
Still trying to pay a debt that isn't even owed.

[Outro]
(Whistled melody from the chorus, melancholic)
Yeah, the headgate's open...
But the river's bone-dry.