[Verse 1]
Trees will make a forest, trees will make a boat
These are all the harder words you have to know
If everyone's a structure where their own savior sits
Then I'm a little red house, but no one's living in it

[Verse 2]
Cars are little blood cells, we are oxygen
City is the airway, suburbs appendages
She was feeling lonely, tired of the hive
Rented out a family

[Chorus]
And he bought a bride
Bought a bride
Bought a bride
Bought a bride

[Post-Chorus]
Little cities' names have ruined all the maps
They tied her up and laid her on the train tracks

[Verse 3]
Where are all the seedlings we grew for violins?
Down in Jersey lumber, still in prosthetic limbs
Should've been a soldier, I could've fought and died
There's no revolution
[Chorus]
So I bought a bride
Bought a bride
Bought a bride
Bought a bride

[Post-Chorus]
Coming down the aisle while the horns play "Taps"
They tied her up and laid her on the train tracks

[Outro]
If somehow I was new and everything was unsaid
I'd go and buy a hammer, never sing again

[Verse 4 (session version)]
Sleeping on a stairway, dreamt I had a boat
Sailed it out the harbor, shot it full of holes
Folded up my prayer book, I couldn't see the lines
Drowning in a kelp bed, I bought a bride