The Shifting Whispering Sands

(album: Talkin' To Your Heart - 1961)

I discovered the valley of the shifting whispering sands
While prospecting for gold in one of our western states.
I saw the silent windmills, the crumbling water tanks
The bones of cattle and burrows, picked clean by buzzards
Bleached by the desert sun.

I stumbled over a crumbling buckboard nearly covered by the sands
And stopping to rest I heard a tinkling whispering sound
And suddenly realised that even though
The wind was quiet the sand did not lie still.

I seemed to be surrounded by a mystery so heavy
And oppressive I could scarcely breath
For days and weeks I wandered aimlessly in this valley
Seeking answers to the many questions
That raced through my fevered mind.

Where was everyone why the white bones, the dry wells
The barren valley where people must have lived and died
Finally I could go no farther my food and water gone
I sat down and buried my face in my hands and resting thus
I learnt the secret of the shifting whispering sands.

How I escaped from the valley I do not know
But now to pay my final debt for being spared
I must tell you what I learned out there on the desert
So many years ago.

(When the day is oddly quiet
And the breeze seems not to blow
One would think the sand was resting
But you'll find this is not so.

It is whisp'ring softly whisp'ring
As it slowly moves along
And for those who stop and listen
It will sing this mournful song.

Of sidewinders and the horntoads
Of the Thorny Chaparral
In the sunny days and moonlight nights
The coyote's lonely yell.

How the stars seem you could touch them
As you lay and gaze on high
At the Heavens where we're hoping
We'll be going when we die.)..