NOTE from mod DrDark: below are NOT the official lyrics.The official lyrics are here: http://www.thegardenforum.org/viewtopic.php?p=22539#p2253901. "
The Community Of Hope" (Washington, DC)
Here's the Hope Six Demolition Project
stretching down to Benning Road -
a well-known "pathway of death",
at least that's what I'm told
and here's the one sit-down restaurant in Ward Seven. Nice.
Okay, now this is just drug town, just zombies,
but that's just life
in The Community of Hope
The Community of Hope
The Community of Hope
The Community of Hope, hope, hope, hope
Here's the highway to death and destruction
South Capitol is its name
and the school just looks like shit-hole -
does that look like a nice place?
Here's the old mental institution,
now the Homeland Security Base,
and here's God's Deliverance Centre,
and deli called M.L.K.
in The Community of Hope
The Community of Hope
The Community of Hope
The Community of Hope, hope, hope, hope
They're gonna put a Walmart here (×8)
04. "
Chain Of Keys" (Kosovo)
Fifteen keys
Fifteen keys are hang on chain
The chain is joint
The chain is joint and forms a ring
The ring is in
The ring is in a woman's hand
She's walking on
She's walking on the dusty ground
The dusty ground's a dead-end track
The neighbours won't be coming back
Fifteen gardens overgrown,
fifteen houses falling down...
The woman's old
The woman's old and dressed in black
She keeps her hands
She keeps her hands behind her back
Imagine what
Imagine what her eyes have seen
We ask, but she
We ask, but she won't let us in
A key so simple and so small -
how can it mean no chance at all?
A key - a promise, or a wish;
how can it mean such hopelessness?
"A circle is broken", she says
"A circle is broken", she says...
05. "
River Anacostia" (Washington, DC)
Oh my Anacostia
do not sigh, do not weep
Beneath the overpass
your Savior's waiting patiently
Walking on the water
flowing with the poisons
from the naval yards
He's talking to the fallen reeds
Saying "What will become of us?"
What will become of us?
Oh...
Wade in the water
God's gonna trouble the water
A small red sun makes way for night
trails away like a tail light
Is that Jesus on the water
talking to the fallen trees?
Saying "What will become of us?"
What will become of us?
Oh...
Wade in the water, God's gonna trouble the water (×3)
What will become if God's gonna trouble waters? (×3)
Wade in the water, God's gonna trouble the water (×3)
Wade in the water
God's gonna trouble the water
06. "
Near the Memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln" (Washington, DC)
All Near the Memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln (×4)
At the refreshments stand
a boy throws out his hands
as if to feed the starlings,
but really he throws nothing
It's just to watch them jump
See the people coming
They moving over the grass
to squeze into plastic chairs
All Near the Memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln (×4)
Three notes - a bugle call
A black man in overalls
arrives to empty the trash,
hauls it to a metal hatch
A doorway opens up
to the underworld
The boy throws empty hands
and the starlings jump
All Near the Memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln (×4)
07. "
The Orange Monkey" (Afghanistan)
A restlessness took hold my brain
and questions I could not hold back
An orange monkey on a chain
on a bleak uneven track
told me that to understand
you must travel back time
I took a plane to a foreign land
and said, "I'll write down what I find"
Beneath a mountain's jagged shelves
cloaked with snow and shadows sheer
plates tipped up upon themselves
the pain of fifty million years
and mules and goats were running wild
A happy chaos carried on
and old men and the young boys smiled
and worked until the day was gone
The packs of sandy-coloured dogs
walked streets that looked like building sites
but piles of rocks and dust and smog
could not block out a different light
When I returned I ran to meet
the monkey, but his face had changed
He stood before me on two feet
The track was now a motorway
08. "
Medicinals" (Washington, DC)
I was walking thru the National Mall,
thinking about medicinals, how they used to grow there
When the ground was a marshland
undisturbed by human hands, and I heard their voices:
Sumac said "We're always here"
Witch Hazel - "We're always here"
Sassafras - "We're always here"
Bluestem grasses always here
I looked about, and what I see?
Medicinals grow around me, rising from the gravel
Sumac and the Witch Hazel
Come to soothe our primal sores, come to soothe our troubles
Sumac said "We're always here"
Witch Hazel - "We're always here"
Sassafras - "We're always here"
Bluestem grass is always here
But do you see that woman, sitting in the wheelchair?
With her Redskins cap on backwards
What's that she's singing?
As from inside a paper wrapper
she sips from a bottle
a new painkiller
for the native people
09. "
The Ministry of Social Affairs" (Afghanistan)
That's what they want, oh yeah,
Money, honey (×4)
See them sitting, in the rain
As the sky is darkening
Three lines of traffic, are edging past
The ministry of social affairs
At a junction on the ground
an amputee and a pregnant hound
Sit by the young men with withered arms
As if death had already passed
Through every alleyway, and left
A million beggars silhouettes
Near where the money changers sit
By their locked glass cabinets
What has happened, let's go and ask
The ministry of social affairs
Near where the money changers sit
By their locked glass cabinets
That's what they want, oh yeah,
Money, honey (×6)
10. "
The Wheel" (Kosovo)
Revolving wheel of metal chairs
Hung on chains, squealing
Four little children flying out
A blind man sings in Arabic
Hey little children, don't disappear
(I heard it was 28,000)
Lost upon the revolving wheel
(I heard it was 28,000)
Now you see them, now you don't
Children vanish at a vehicle
Now you see them, now you don't
Faces, limbs, a bouncing skull
Hey little children, don't disappear
(I heard it was 28,000)
All that's left after a year
(I heard it was 28,000)
Faded face, trace of an ear
(I heard it was 28,000)
A tableau of the missing
tied to the government building
8000 sun-bleached photographs
Fading with the roses
Hey little children, don't disappear
(I heard it was 28,000)
Lost upon the revolving wheel
(I heard it was 28,000)
All that's left after a year
(I heard it was 28,000)
Faded face, trace of an ear
(I heard it was 28,000)
And watch them fade out...
11. "
Dollar, Dollar" (Afghanistan)
A boy stares through the glass
He's saying "dollar dollar"
Three lines of traffic past
We're trapped inside our car
His voice says "dollar dollar"
I turn to you to ask
For something we could offer
Three lines of traffic past
We pull away so fast
All my words get swallowed
In the rear view glass
A face pock-marked and hollow
He's saying "dollar dollar"
I can't look through or past
They say "dollar dollar"
A face pock-marked and hollow
Staring from the glass
"
Homo Sappy Blues" (Washington, DC)
Jaw and a leg bones, reconstructed skull
On continents or oceans
They died so young
What God sent you,
sent you from your cave?
I need your wisdom
Homo Sapiens
Path of your migration
Is marked upon a map
Looking like a tattoo
On a kid's forhead
What God sent you,
sent you from your cave?
I need your wisdom
If only for a day
What God sent you? (x2)
They dying young around here
With a hunger in their guts
And a taste for vodka
Their friends' faces on their shirts
Last year they killed one
Just for his shoes
Tell me what God sent you?
I got the Homo Sappy Blues
What God sent you? (×2)