1. |
The Great Divide
04:26
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Freight train rolling through a restless town
Whistle blows, that’s a lonesome sound
Two shorts and a long as the sun goes down
All along the great divide
On the east side when the shadows are long
It’s like your living inside a Tom Waits Song
An American dream that’s gone all wrong
All along the great divide
It’s not just the tracks that split this town
It’s a system built to keep you down
If you don’t have the money and your skin is brown
Then slavery’s alive
All along the great divide
On the west side everything’s pretty and green
Like the cover of a high-toned Magazine
Safe behind their gates, not a soul to be seen
All along the great divide
On the east side you can get shot in the back
For the crime of walking down the street while black
And that train keeps rolling, clickety clack
All along the great divide
Oh, it’s a ghost train ride
The wound is open and it is wide
You can’t cross over to the other side
All along the great divide
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2. |
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In this year of grief and sorrow
When winter wouldn’t go away
We dream about a new tomorrow
When we can all go out and play
When this storm is finally weathered
When we know this war is won
We will dance and sing together
Like we did when we were young
We are broken but we’ll mend
If we can just stay safe till then
on the day that all ends
We’ll hold each other close again
We are broken but we’ll mend
We all miss the human touch
Hand in Hand and heart to heart
There is only so much
You feel from 6 feet apart
We’ll do an old-fashioned slow dance
To ‘At Last’ by Etta James
Will we remember how to romance
Stir those embers into flames?
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3. |
Water Is Rising
03:41
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Winters are colder
And the summer’s too warm
Seems like every season,
We get a hundred-year storm
Water is rising, water is rising
The fishery’s gone
And the tourists are too
We had to sell the store
What else can we do?
Water is rising, water is rising
They tell us not to worry, things like this happen
It’ll be better next year
But they said that about the buffalo
I think we’ve heard enough to know
That the good old days aren’t comin’ back ‘round here
My brother in Vicksburg
Says the fields are too wet
They won’t get off a crop
But you-know-who says it ain’t bad yet
Water is rising, water is rising
Out on the coast,
They’ve got wildfires and drought
How can anybody say
That they still have their doubts
Water is rising, water is rising
Over in Africa
They’re getting it the worst
Why does it always seem
That the poor folks get it first?
Water is rising, water is rising
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4. |
Molly's Song
04:29
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I looked for you Molly where the morning sun breaks Over the pines along the shoreline around your beloved lake
Or on the ski trail in the backwoods on the freshly fallen snow All the magic places where I know you always loved to go You weren’t there, you weren’t there And you were everywhere
I looked for you Molly underneath the spotlight’s glow
On the stage where you knew the way to steal hearts and the show
On the endless road we travelled together for so long
Or in between the lines of your fearless songs You weren’t there, you weren’t there,
And you were everywhere.
When you play a little harder Live your life a little larger Reach a little farther than most for the sky When a heart that beat so strong is stilled It leaves a bigger whole to fill Makes you wonder how we will survive When you’re not there, and you are everywhere
I looked for you Molly where a sail might catch a breeze Or in a dark room you could lighten up, where you’d put us all at ease
Where your bass line would hold down a badass beat Where your laughter used to mask the tears that lurked down underneath
You weren’t there, you weren’t there. And you were everywhere.
I guess you would have teased me about this song You’d say it’s too sentimental, and I got the groove all wrong It could’a been a little more Motown, a little more soul
A little more rock, and a little more roll
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5. |
Love Is Our Best Chance
02:41
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Times are hard, we know that for sure
Folks feel alone and they’re all scared
We all yearn to
Find somewhere that we can to turn to
If we look into our hearts we’ll find it there
I’d like to tell you tonight
Everything’s gonna be all right
But I don’t know if that is really true
All I can say
Is I’ll be with you all the way
And our love is our best chance to make it through
Feeling stuck, but we’re stuck together
In an unknown No-Man’s Land
Hard to see the other side
But we’re all on the same ride
Holding metaphorical hands
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6. |
Riches of the Severn
02:56
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As the smiling moon rises it shines just like silver
As the sun fades the river runs golden
And the waking stars scatter bright diamonds on the water
Such riches the Severn is holding
Hard times come and go
They ebb and they flow
Leaving us battered and scarred
But as our love grows
The river knows
And she holds us safe in her arms
Sit down beside her, she’s a kindly provider
And watch life’s sweet miracles unfolding
Her banks lined with fine fragrant cedars and pines
Such riches the Severn is holding
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7. |
Sandford Avenue
04:33
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As your memories fade away
It won’t be long now
Only one seems to remain
It won’t be long now
Of a place you left so far behind
It won’t be long now
Before this terror stole your mind
It won’t be long now
You’re going home to Sandford Avenue
Home, where your mother waits for you
You can play the day away
It won’t be long now
Don’t you worry you can stay
It won’t be long now
You’ll be safe in Greenwood Park
It won’t be long now
Till the streetlights come on at dark
It won’t be long now
Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing
Onward, the sailors cry
Carry the lad that's born to be King
Over the sea to Skye
Though the waves leap, soft shall ye sleep
Ocean's a royal bed.
Rocked in the deep, Flora will keep
Watch by your weary head.
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8. |
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Beneath a murderous moon, a flash of machete
A scream and a keening in the night
With our babies and wives, we ran for our lives
Turning north we set our sights
Turning north we set our sights
On a place that we’d heard that you’d be just as free
As the eagle that’s on their green money
Where work waits for you, jobs the gringos won’t do
In the land of milk and honey
In the land of milk and honey
I kept a picture of the Statue of Liberty
Close to my broken heart
And I prayed to the saints to deliver me
To where our families would never be torn all apart
Where we could all make a new start
All through Mexico tall tales were told
About what lay in store at the border for you
In the home of our dreams, how could it be,
How could those stories be true?
How could those stories be true?
They rounded us up, put us in pens
Like cattle waiting for slaughter
Big men with big guns, tore fathers from sons
And mothers from their daughters
And mothers from their daughters
That statue says “give me your tired your poor
The refuse from your teeming shore”
But they don’t mean it any more
No lamp to lift, no golden door
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria
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9. |
Worn Out World
03:16
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Poison in the water, poison in the air
Poison in the hardened hearts of billionaires
Who raped our planet and left it to bleed
And who sacrificed our future to feed their great greed Do we want to bring a child into this world?
Do we want to bring a child into this worn out world?
Are we in the final days of the Anthropocene
Do we have to search this earth for the last patch of green? If we raised one up when it’s all falling down
When our dreams all seemed to be scattered on the ground
Do we want to bring a child into this world?
Do we want to bring a child into this worn out world?
If we raised a tiny person
Would it look back at us
Raging and cursing
And coughing up toxic dust?
Would they stand half a chance
With what we left for them
Or with the gift of time
Would they somehow find
A way back again?
Do we want to raise a child into this world?
Do we want to raise a child into this worn out world?
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10. |
Empathy
03:50
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You’re afraid, I see that clearly
And I know where that comes from
Things are changing so severely
We’re living under a monster’s thumb
Where once our future looked so green
Now the landscape’s dark and barren
We’re in the age of selfishness and greed
Overwhelmed by Kyle’s and Karens
What happened to the love we shared
Where is the human decency?
Remember when we seemed to care
What happened to you, what happened to me
What happened to empathy?
Truth has taken a vacation
And kindness went along for the ride and
It’s left a bitter broken nation
Beaten and divided
Remember ‘love thy neighbour’
And ‘living in harmony’?
Now we rattle our sabres
And descend into tyranny
We cry and we grieve
We’re in mourning for this land
A parcel of rogues and thieves
Have blood on their hands
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11. |
Moving Up To Awesome
03:10
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We’re not going back to normal,
That’s not what we need,
Normal’s driven by the religion of greed
Normal was racism, violence and hate
Normal made poverty a permanent state
Normal was built on fear and dread
We’re not going back to normal
Like oil, it is dead
We’re moving up to awesome,
That’s where we need to be
Awesome’s made from love and empathy
Awesome starts with equality
Awesome sounds like harmony
Awesome doesn’t leave anybody behind
We’re moving up to awesome
Awesome is alive
Normal didn’t care, normal wasn’t fair
Normal only works if you’re a billionaire
Normal was children locked up in a cage
Normal never paid a living wage
Normal meant you never got ahead
We’re not going back to normal
Like oil, it is dead
Normal was waging endless war
Normal was not what we bargained for
Normal was designed to fail
Normal was a Hollywood fairy tale
Normal couldn’t keep everybody fed
We’re not going back to normal,
Let’s get awesome instead
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12. |
When I Stayed Home
02:34
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When I stayed home
I sorted through my old cassettes
Learned to play the clarinet
Got to the end of the internet
When I stayed home
When I stayed home
I was never short of things to do
Stuff I’d not done hitherto
I kept busy missing you
When I stayed home
When I stayed home
I didn’t feel alone
When I stayed home
I knew I wasn’t on my own
I knew I was doing my bit
I knew I was a part of it
When I stayed home
When I stayed home
I got my ducks all in a row
I planted seeds and watched them grow
Watched old 90s videos
When I stayed home
When I stayed home
I found that our community
Had such a great resiliency
You couldn’t take that away from me
When I stayed home
When I stayed home
I dreamed of possibilities
For shifting our society
To make this a better place to be
When we don’t have to stay home
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13. |
We'll Bring You Home
02:21
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The Grey Sisters of the cross
Were entrusted with your care
What care was shown to those we lost
In that grave over there
We’ve all heard the tales
Of the horrors at St. Anne’s
We all heard the screams and wails
It was part of the plan
We’ll bring you home, bring you home
So your names and your stories can be known
Bring you home, bring you home
We’ll give a voice to your dust and to your bones
It was dark where you were discarded
It was cold and it was damp
For all the broken-hearted
It was not a school but a concentration camp
Cut down in your youth
They took your future away
Now you can speak your truth`
So your death won’t be in vain
Cowessess, Kamloops Brandon
Cranbrook, more to come
Places where you were abandoned
By the so-called holy ones
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JAMES GORDON Guelph, Ontario
James Gordon is a Canadian songwriter/playwright/musician/producer/author and community activist. Co-founder of the
legendary Canadian folk trio Tamarack, He’s released 40 albums in 40 years!
His newest release on Borealis Records- "the Heritage Hall Sessions" has been very well received world-wide. James Moonlights as a CIty Councillor in his hometown of Guelph, Ontario. www.jamesgordon.ca
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