The Teller's Tune

In a Manhattan courthouse on a long, hot day The whispers of history wouldn't go away Thirty-four numbers read out in a line A crack in the ledger, a tangled design A payment for silence, a story to keep While out in the country, the promises sleep The first of his station to carry the name Of a felon convicted, in a high-stakes game Oh, the ink is dry, the verdict's read Another chapter for the books ahead

The sun still sets, the sun will rise On the same old truths and the same new lies And the traveling teller just plucks on a string For the human song that the headlines sing Meanwhile, the plains where the thunderheads grew The sky turned a shade of an emerald hue A funnel cloud dropped with a terrible soundAnd scattered the pieces of a Texas town It twisted the steel and it splintered the wood Left an empty foundation where a family stood And down in the desert, the fever dream climbs

Another degree for these burning times Oh, the ink is dry, the verdict's read Another chapter for the books ahead The sun still sets, the sun will rise On the same old truths and the same new lies And the traveling teller just plucks on a string For the human song that the headlines sing Some storms are of paper, and some are of air Both leave a wreckage beyond all repair From the judge's low gavel to the wind's high wail

It's a different telling of the same old tale Of power and ruin, of loss and of cost And trying to find what you thought wasn't lost Oh, the ink is dry, the verdict's read Another chapter for the books ahead The sun still sets, the sun will rise On the same old truths and the same new lies And the traveling teller just plucks on a string For the human song that the headlines sing