• Track: Far from Any Road
• Artist: The Handsome Family
• Album: Singing Bones
• Year: 2003

Lyrics:

From the dusty may sun, her looming shadow grows
Hidden in the branches of the poison creosote

She twines her spines up slowly towards the boiling sun,
And when I touched her skin, my fingers ran with blood.

In the hushing dusk, under a swollen silver moon,
I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom.

And strange hands halted me; the looming shadows danced.
I fell down to the thorny brush and felt a trembling hand.

When the last light warms the rocks and the rattlesnakes unfold,
Mountain cats will come to drag away your bones.

And rise with me forever across the silent sand,
And the stars will be your eyes and the wind will be my hands.

Fans of HBO’s True Detective series will recognize this as the song from the season one opening sequence/theme song. This song evokes feelings of size and distance. Even without the lyrics, I picture a wide open desert scene. This is the kind of music I would expect to hear playing in a smoky, sad cowboy bar somewhere in the far west. The line, “When the last light warms the rocks and the rattlesnakes unfold” paints a picture that hits all senses, allowing the listener to hear the snake’s warning rattles, feel the cooling desert, feel the sting of the dry dust bowl desert, and even taste the thirst of a wanderer who’s too far from any road come nightfall. 

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