Well now on a summer night in a dusky room   Come a little piece of the Lord's undying light   Crying like he swallowed the fiery moon   In his mother's arms it was all the beauty I could take   Like the missing words to some prayer that I could never make   In a world so hard and dirty so fouled and confused   Searching for a little bit of God's mercy   I found living proof      I put my heart and soul I put 'em high upon a shelf   Right next to the faith the faith that I'd lost in myself   I went down into the desert city   Just tryin' so hard to shed my skin   I crawled deep into some kind of darkness   Lookin' to burn out every trace of who I'd been   You do some sad sad things baby   When it's your you 're tryin' to lose   You do some sad and hurtful things   I've seen living proof      You shot through my anger and rage   To show me my prison was just an open cage   There were no keys no guards   Just one frightened man and some old shadows for bars      Well now all that's sure on the boulevard   Is that life is just a house of cards   As fragile as each and every breath   Of this boy sleepin' in our bed   Tonight let's lie beneath the eaves   Just a close band of happy thieves   And when that train comes we'll get on board   And steal what we can from the treasures of the Lord   It's been along long drought baby   Tonight the rain's pourin' down on our roof   Looking for a little bit of God's mercy   I found living proof