Story Behind The Song

A plaintive bird song gets me to thinking about lovely things, and how easily they can be squandered, and at what a great cost.

Song Description

Looking around, we make the sad observation that the nation has parted with the best she had, and for what...? Much of it seems irrecoverable. The process has been so subtle and gradual that few can assess how great the change has been.

Lyrics

1. Cities, somber, toned in brown,

Sprawl in great confusion,

Pained and disillusioned,

While the clock of borrowed time

Ticks toward consummation.


2. Races, locked in ghetto worlds

Left to self-destruction,

Long past reconstruction,

Sit in listless silence

As they hope for resurrection.

Chorus: And somewhere high above
the smoke,

A dusty robin sings:

Caroling a sacred tune

Of faded, verdant springs.


3. Shoppers crowd the sterile malls,

Greedy for ful?llment;

(What, then, can instill it?)

Wandering through the gilded halls,

Bankrupt, yet they've willed it.


4. Children, aged beyond their years,

Create their own explanation,

Lacking demonstration

From the absent mentors of

The older generation.


Bridge: Cries of sorrow, tearless cries

Wend their way to heaven;

Speaking of a great betrayal

Suffered by the nation.

Mirthless laughter, empty smiles,

Tell of her condition:

She who once with joy and hope

Lived out her commission.