The track “Harm’s Swift Way” exists today only because it was one of the final tunes to escape from the brain of its writer, Townes Van Zandt, and onto tape in the days that immediately preceded his death on New Year’s Day in 1997. Van Zandt’s widow, Jeanene, was so moved in 2008 by Plant’s live take on the song “Nothin’” that she gave him a copy of Townes’ uncirculated demo of “Harm’s Swift Way,” with its dark lyrics centering on the meaning of life and the great beyond. That made it to Plant’s live set, but one song that didn’t is the one he uses to close his album, “Even This Shall Pass Away,” based on the words of a poem from 1866 that reflect on a wise Persian king’s observation that you can’t take it with you when you go.
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Behold ...
Harm's Swift Way
There is a home out of harms swift way
I set myself to find
I swore to my love I would
Bring her there
Then I left my love behind
The desert was long
I set myself to find
I swore to my love I would
Bring her there
Then I left my love behind
The desert was long
The mountain high
The road ran steep and winding
The promises so easily made
Unbearable, yet binding
Oh me, oh my
The road ran steep and winding
The promises so easily made
Unbearable, yet binding
Oh me, oh my
Who's gonna count my time
Time will go, it never stays
Memory locked in her passing
Try, oh try to cling to her
Until she becomes everlasting
The world's still blue
My word's still true
I feel I'm turning hollow
She does as she please
If ever she leaves
I'll strangle upon the sorrow
Oh me, oh my
Who's gonna mark my time
The road is past, tomorrow the sky
Between sometimes is blinding
Someday soon when I turn to cloud
I will fly on her wings somehow
Wrapped in the road and filled with above
The ground seems to fade away
Hold to the earth like a new born child
Pray she returns someday
Oh me, oh my
Who's gonna mark my time
- Townes Van Zandt
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