Kray Van Kirk :Darkest Hour

Darkest Hour

by Arlo Guthrie

NOTES: This is one of my all-time favorite songs. I saw Arlo perform it in Jackson, Wyoming in 1990 and was immediately hooked. I recorded it on my first album, The Captain and the Lady, and needed the lyrics. I wrote Arloco music and got back a single, hand-written sheet with the words scribbled on it. Although it was highly unlikely that Arlo Guthrie himself had written them down, I was still rather upset a few years later when I lost it while moving.

Drop-D tuning, 12-string

It's the tenth of January
And I still ain't had no sleep
She comes waltzing in the nighttime made of wings
She is dressed up like a bandit
With a hundred sparkling rings
Looking for my company to keep
Coming closer to me
She doesn't say a word
In the shadow of the carved rock tower
Where the sounds of the night
Were the only things we heard
In my darkest hour

She don't want to hear no secrets
She would guarantee me that
She knows there ain't no words that can describe her
With her white silk scarves
And her black Spanish hat
She knows there ain't no way I can deny her
Yes her blue velvet perfume
Filling up the night
The guards are all asleep
That watch the tower
The moon light held her breast
As she easily undressed
In my darkest hour

Her father's in his chambers with his
Friends all gathered 'round
They are plotting their enemy's demise
With their last detail done
They await the coming sun
While I am staring in my lover's eyes
Her brothers and her sisters
Are all through for tonight
Pretending that they've just
Come into power
But she far most of all, knows that they
Can only fall
In my darkest hour

Hungry wings; their melodies
While my love awakens me
In the midst of the sunburst first light
Her hands are holding up the skies
As I hid my opened eyes
Every move just for herself
And that's so right
Soon I went along my way
With no words that could explain
As she began descending to the tower
Her safety now concerns me
Her circumstance to blame
In my darkest hour