Peru

Peru
Album	Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan
Forthcoming	November 7, 2025
Length	3:54
Previous Track	"Your Bandage"
Next Track	"Through This Fire"

Peru is the sixth song on Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan.

Lyrics

You were already talking when I woke up today
For a man on combat rations, you sure do find a lot to say
Try to fix my attention, can't clear my head
Sun clearing the waterline
Hot and deadly and red

Like the flowers you said you wrote about
About a million years ago, you said they grew
On a distant mountain in Peru

I don't want the water to break you
Let me lead you back to the fire
You've always got a little further to drop
When you've risen that much higher

Fear in my heart like a shadow
I can't let it linger too long
When your gift begins to consume you
One of us will have to be strong

Like the flowers that die in the winter
But never fail to grow back new
In the cracks down in the canyons in Peru

In the deep crevices where you wouldn't think the light could reach
Distant as a dream of the cradle on this lonesome beach

Let the man whose heart would know peace
Praise all the things that he should praise
Just about a week in the future
These are going to seem like the good days

Because the snake is going to rise from the pit
And brother will turn against brother
We won't have a minute to lose
At most we'll only have each other

Like the flowers you said you saw when you were young
When you were still you
Like the flowers you may have imagined
Doing what their nature tells them to
Worlds away in the wind in Peru

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song

• "This song is called Peru, it's on the new record. The melody is actually from 1999, it was a song also called Peru for The Coroner's Gambit that I took and harvested for this." -- 2025-11-30 - The ELM - Bozeman, MT

Live Shows this Song Was Played at

• 2025-11-22 - The Pinhook - Durham, NC
• 2025-11-29 - Metro Music Hall - Salt Lake City, UT
• 2025-11-30 - The ELM - Bozeman, MT
• 2025-12-03 - Neptune Theatre - Seattle, WA