The Morning Choir

The bankers in their towers high, they watch the numbers rise and fall They say the winter's not yet done, just one small harvest, if at all They hold the rates and watch the scales, a heavy thumb upon the land While folks below just try to build a life with what they have on hand. Down in a court in Delaware, the President's own flesh and blood Stood 'fore the gavel's heavy sound, misunderstood or understood The law, it speaks the same for all, or so the ancient story goes

A father's pain, a nation's eye, on seeds a troubled history sows. Oh, the wheel it turns, the seasons change, the headlines shout a brand new name But the story's old, the song's the same, of power, loss, and pride, and shame From town to town, I walk the wire, and sing of flood and sing of fire Just another verse for the morning choir. Across the sea, the leaders meet, in Italy's warm summer haze To move the frozen gold of war, through these confusing, modern days

A fifty-billion-dollar loan, to keep the cannons fed and loud While back at home the sun beats down, a fever dream beneath a cloud. The air gets thick, the rivers shrink, the heat it settles in the bones The old folks whisper that the sky has forgotten all its ancient tones From Phoenix up to Caribou, the earth it groans a heavy sigh A warning whispered on the breeze, to all of us beneath the sky. Oh, the wheel it turns, the seasons change, the headlines shout a brand new name

But the story's old, the song's the same, of power, loss, and pride, and shame From town to town, I walk the wire, and sing of flood and sing of fire Just another verse for the morning choir. You read it on a glowing screen, you think the world's about to break For all the sorrow ever seen, for goodness and for pity's sake But I've sung this song in dust and rain, through telegraphs and fields of grain And every time, I see the strain is just an echo of the pain.

Oh, the wheel it turns, the seasons change, the headlines shout a brand new name But the story's old, the song's the same, of power, loss, and pride, and shame From town to town, I walk the wire, and sing of flood and sing of fire Just another verse for the morning choir.