Lyrics

My folks came a long way from where they started
On a journey uncharted, toward a dream out of reach
Away from their old hometown confines
The church of the straight lines and the small faith they teach
But they never knew how safe the old place had felt
‘Til it dawned they couldn’t go back again
Since they turned from the company of family and friends
To bet on a somewhere that they’d never been

And I know I’ve got so much further to go
And I’ll press on when I find the nerve
Don’t always know what we’re learning when we’re learning
We just feel the turning
From here on the curve

The framers were dreamers and novices
Making high-minded promises they could never fulfill
While empire, arms and embargoes
And chained human cargoes bent the land to their will
And some say that all of our talk about rights is
Just a front for the wrongs we ignore
But a few say they’ve been to the mountaintop
And caught a glimpse of a land worth bleeding out for

Where what’s in the heart is the measure that matters
And the poor get the mercy they deserve
So I try to believe that this mean world could be it
When I can’t see it from here on the curve

There’s an unbroken line of violence
And the history books just tell its stages
But there’s also an unspoken arc of compassion
Bending its way through the ages

Now the old dreams are running on vapours
Despair’s in the papers and trickling down the wire
But with fortunes to be made in distracting
Most everyone’s acting like the world’s not on fire
And though I know it’s past time to shut this thing down
I’m so tied in it’s hard to see how
So I’m just trying to find ways to save what I love
For lovers to come generations from now

Who’ll find the courage to dream something better
Than a world where some rule and some serve
And to see how the old rules were breakable
That seemed inescapable from here on the curve