The Story's Old

The wind came howlin' through the Texas plains Washed out the roads in the Arkansas rains The sky turned green and the sirens criedAnother town where a piece of us died They pull the boards from a splintered home Under a sky the color of chrome And they ask the Lord for a reason why The same old storm in a brand new sky Oh, the headlines change, but the story's old Of the brave and the broken, the bought and the sold The ink runs dry on the printed page

But it's the same old story on a different stage The world keeps turnin', fast and slow And the travelling singer's the first to know A king in a tower of glass and gold A storybook tale that the papers told He stood in a court, not a battlefield With thirty-four counts on a paper shield The jury sat with a heavy heart Tearing a nation's fabric apart The verdict's thunder, a mighty sound

Another king has lost his crown Oh, the headlines change, but the story's old Of the brave and the broken, the bought and the sold The ink runs dry on the printed page But it's the same old story on a different stage The world keeps turnin', fast and slow And the travelling singer's the first to know Down by the border, a line is drawn For the weary souls who greet the dawn They closed the door with a stroke of a pen

And the same old question comes 'round again Some cheer the fall, some curse the call And the cracks grow wider in the garden wall We look for a truth that we can hold In these brand new tales, I've long been told Oh, the headlines change, but the story's old Of the brave and the broken, the bought and the sold The ink runs dry on the printed page But it's the same old story on a different stage The world keeps turnin', fast and slow

And the travelling singer's the first to know