Get ready war machine
Big guys riding high on power
Falling short on feeling and the hour is
growing near
You got a judging eye before a baby’s birth
You keep assuring the meek we will inherit the earth
Well what you failed to notice in your
destruction cold and steady
Is hey big guys you’re sinking and the meek are getting ready

Get ready death machine
Small folks coasting up on empty
Feeling full of feeling and the sky is
growing clear
The maps are drawn by a living choir
And every move you make it just fuels our fire
Well what you failed to notice in your
destruction cold and steady
Is hey big guys you’re sinking and the meek are getting ready

Behold the meek are ready, armed with a
loving hand
The earth is sending a message to the keepers of the land
We won’t wait, we won’t wait
We won’t wait until it’s over
To inherit what’s left
Or to eat out of heaven’s hand
We won’t wait, we won’t wait
We won’t wait so move over
You’ll find a world of lovers and friends
Singing where a tyrant used to stand

The meek are getting ready
The meek shall inherit the earth

I saw an eagle fly across the sun
The flags came down without a sound
I felt a passion of mixed persuasion
Just then the mountain came tumbling down
I dreamed a rainbow spilled across the night
I want to see it in my time
The harbor opened to ships and saviors
Just then the mountain came tumbling down

If life is like the music
Then be careful you can lose it
And beware the singer
How the lights come shining
And I’m counting on my timing
Oh the band is playing fine
Tell the cynic to kiss tomorrow
All the moments are melodies
And the songs I have borrowed
They keep coming on back to me
I’m standing on precious (solid) ground
Filling the air with sound
Don’t let the singer down

I touched a hand that played a thousand drums
A child escaped into the moon
A rage exploded and spread like rumors
Just then the mountain came tumbling down
I saw an eagle fly across the sun
The flags came down without a sound
A soldier kissed me and ran for cover
Just then the mountain came tumbling down

 

Watch Out! Watch Out!
There’s a rumble of war in the air
Watch Out! Watch Out!
There’s a rumble of war in the air
With a man like that you never know where or when
He’s gone, he’s gone and sent in the Marines again

Some are small and frightened
Some well-seasoned men
Some are rightly scared to death
Some are feeling joy at seeing blood again

Today they recruited calmly
In a patriotic trend
Sending poor people off to war
It’s cheap cannon fodder again

Casualties seldom counted
Are the ones the guns invade
The ones who work the land, the ones
who love the land
Where dreams of peace are made

Daddy took a bullet from a scab in West Virginia
Mama took the family and she drove to Albuquerque
My sister took a job, got sent to fight across the border
My brother keeps my mama, her grief took half her mind
So I send them home some money from the odd jobs that I find

No one came knockin’ at my door with loving on their mind
The only knocks I ever got were of the hurting kind
So I keep on moving on down the line
One foot ahead of trouble
But trouble’s all this body ever finds
One step forward, two steps back
Trying to get across the railroad track
One step forward, two steps back
Trying to get across the railroad track
And there’s a train a-comin’, there’s a train a-comin’
There’s a train a-comin’, I want to ride

I’ve seen the eyes of prison guards staring at my body
I’ve known the arms of strangers who left money on the table
I’ve stood for hours putting pears and apples into boxes
I’m afraid to see my mama, I may lose half my mind
So I send them home some money from the odd jobs that I find

Too tired to sleep after a long day’s work at the Augusta Heritage Arts Workshop, my weary fellow teachers and I holed up in an old farm-house and wrote this song.

Stole away like jeweling thieves to swim round the waterfall
Dark crept around us, still we found our way
The movers are melting at the racer’s end
I’m spending the night with a couple of friends

Long days and helping hands, songs for slowing down
The babies are sleeping, the food’s put away
The movers are melting at the racer’s end
I’m spending the night with a couple of friends

Home, everybody home
For the moment we breathe in the family
That we have created from love, from a lifeline
Women loving women and men loving men
Women loving men, people trying again
As we work for a future so that all that we are
Can come home

She danced across the mountain, she thought no one could see
And every move she made across the land taught her to be free
She swept across the valley, her body so defined
And wet with the sweat of seventeen, she found another mountain to be climbed

She soared across the desert, the moon was all aglow
She stumbled once in the freezing sand but no one would ever know
She swam across the river, her muscles straining strong
And she knew as she crossed, the water pulled her deeper into places she belonged

She came to another mountain and found that all could see
Every move was proudly made with love and dignity
For she is Freedom’s daughter and Mother Nature’s child
As she raced across the finish line her beauty drove the watchful people wild

She paused to feel the power of people singing songs
That celebrated living, a feeling that she longed for
But slicing through the laughter came an anguished country’s cries
And she saw a gun blow up the song and stole away the future from her eyes

A child was standing near her and caught the runner’s fire
She kissed her mouth with passion and filled her with desire
And when her feet were on the ground she faced the burning sky
And with a cry that filled the air with rain
She cooled the skin of those who would not die

The killer saw her power, the tyrant saw her skill
The women saw themselves in her and the people saw her will
Divided by their colors, betrayed by fear’s decree
But no matter how the future goes, She has been and She will always be

She will dance across the mountain
She will dance across the mountain
I have dreamed on this mountain

We are dancing in the moonlight, in a Nicaragua night
For the mothers of the soldiers, we bring our spirits here
We call on midnight’s mentor to mourn the murder done
For the mothers of the soldiers, spirits now be here

In the heat we learn your language
In the night we learn your songs
Voices call across the canyon in search of echoes
A bloody pictures point the finger at the devil’s brand of terror
And the wailing will begin soft and low

There is passion in remembering
There is fire in the heart
On the mountain grows a tree that roots the fury
The river moves the story, it’s a troubadour’s revenge
As the tortoise slips beneath the sea, the hare begins to worry

In Detroit a child is crying
On Big Mountain a people die
But in Washington the palace lamps are burning
The hand that bought the ambush has tried to buy my soul
But like you I won’t sell out and I will never surrender

And we’ll keep dancing
In the moonlight, in the Nicaragua night
Hold our children through the night
For the mothers of the soldiers, we bring our spirits here
We call on midnight’s mentor to mourn the murder done
For the mothers of the soldiers, spirits now be here

 

Children ran to the river bank
Left their shoes and swam toward the light
When dark came on and the dinner bell rang
The children were nowhere in sight
Only a shape, only a memory, only a shell
And the sun won’t stop for no one

Death paused on its weary way
Left the highway and stayed the night
When dawn came on and my mama rose
My daddy was nowhere in sight
Only a shape, only a memory, only a shell
And the sun won’t stop for no one

Who’s gonna hold my hand when I’m old
I’ll still have stories to tell
You will wish one day you had paused to listen
But I will be nowhere in sight
Only a shape, only a memory, only a shell
And the sun won’t stop for no one

 

A child becomes a target of a day that was too tough
On a mother and a father who work hard to make enough
To feed a family that they love
To build a home that’s full of joy
And they did not mean to hit the baby boy

It’s just too hard for a child to understand
When a home turns into a nightmare
And it isn’t how anyone planned
Let’s not leave the children helplessly in fear
Let’s not leave the parents lost and all alone
The violence that we read in the morning paper
May well be our own

A child becomes a target of a passion misdirected
She can’t reveal her terror or for sure she’ll be suspected
Of being evil or telling lies
Her mother turns away her eyes
As the father carries out an act the world denies

Young minds become the target of a world that lives in fear
They’re burning books, they’re burning crosses
And the violence is clearly robbing children of their senses
And denying them a heart
In a world like this, that’s where abuse can start

I don’t want to say good-bye to you
To think we may not ever meet again
Remember me someday when you’re lonely
And you know you have a West Virginia friend

I know you’re only passing through
I knew it from the start
Sometimes there is love to spare inside this country heart
But the rain upon the old barn roof
And your North Dakota Song
Will be a pleasant company for me when you’re gone

Maybe I’ll go rambling
When my baby’s up and grown
I kind of like the thought of traveling out there on my own
But I love these gentle mountains
More than strangers do
Some of us stay settled and some of us
pass through