Red Earth

(album: Carnival - 2005)

The rock is made of diamond, the rivers wash with gold
The sun beats down in rhythm, pounding on our reason
Pounding on our reason, ringing in our skulls

Sometimes this land looks empty it plays so many tricks on you
The soil of dried blood sown with seed of people
Overrun with armies that grow out of the earth
They flow down from the mountains, spring out of the ground

The shacks they all have numbers, the dirt tracks run in straight lines
Vanity and uselessness, the minds of prison guards

Praying on a Sunday, dressed up in our finest
Any god is welcome, any god that will come
To give back what was taken, take back what was given
Blood and death and sacrifice, the curse of wasting plague
And all the beauty tainted and east of Eden cast

Children walking barefoot in the golden dust
Boys with blinding eyes, perfect skin and Bible names
Machetes and AKs, perfect skin and Bible names
Machetes and AKs, perfect skin and Bible names
Take back what was taken, take back what was taken
Take back what was taken, machetes and AKs

All the waiting, all the walking all the miles
All the working in the fields and in the mines
In the orchards of the rulers
Bring us cure, bring us deliverance from evil
From all the sins of all the fathers
Bring us water, bring us vengeance, bring us power
Catch a sound in the dead of the night
The clicked triggers of security lights
By the pool where the shadows stir, silent, silent
Through the scented garden moving in
By the waving of the skeletal trees, closer and closer
Through the doors and through the walls and...