Lyrics

Before the Deluge

Author: Jackson Browne

Some of them were dreamers, some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent, they were gathering the tools
That they would need to make their journey back to nature.
When the sand slipped through the opening
And their hands reached for the golden ring
And their hearts turned to each others hearts for refuge
In the troubled years that came before the deluge

Some of them knew pleasure, some of them knew pain
And for some of them it was only the moment that mattered
On the wild and crazy wings of youth they went flying around in the rain,
Until their feathers once so fine were torn and tattered
In the end they traded their tired wings
For the resignation that living brings
They traded love’s bright and fragile glow for the glitter and the rouge
In a moment they were swept before the deluge

So let the music keep your spirits high
Let the buildings keep your children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by, by and by
When the light that’s lost within us reaches the sky

Some of them were angry at the way that the earth was abused
By those men who learned to forge beauty into power
And in trying to protect us from them only became confused
By the magnitude of the fury in the final hour
When the sand was gone and the time arrived
In the naked dawn only a few survived
In attempts to understand this thing so simple and so huge
Believed they were meant to live after the deluge

So let the music keep your spirits high
Let the buildings keep your children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by, by and by
When the light that’s lost within us reaches the sky

More Info
Jackson Browne, that man of America sang his song with me Millstreet in 1996 and in the Philharmonic Liverpool in 2004.We still plan to write a song together.