By the Waters

from The Odds of It All by Ships at a Distance

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lyrics

Down by the river we homelessly slept,
there we sat and there we wept.
Our hearts ached for our home of the past
that steeps in blood and dust and soot and ash.

Useless our songs dangle from the willows,
beneath the branch where our captors' pride billows.
They cry out with tongue in cheek:
"Sing us the songs you used to sing!"

But how could we sing out hearts' song in a foreign land?
If I forget my home then cursed be my hand.
And curse my faithless tongue within my mouth
if I forget my broken, battered home to the south.
If my love for Jerusalem is not higher than the clouds?

Oh God, do not forget, the day of your people's fall,
as they cursed and stabbed and tore and screamed:
"Tear down the wall!"
Down to the foundations, down they tore the wall.

Oh Daughter Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,
happy will be those who send you to the void.
And happy will be those who, with reddened rocks,
make you understand everything that we have lost.
Oh, you must understand everything that we have lost.

credits

from The Odds of It All, released October 31, 2015

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about

Ships at a Distance Davidson, North Carolina

Ships at a Distance is a North Carolina folk trio with one foot in Appalachia and one foot in the city.

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