When I was young it all seemed like a game
Living here brought no sense of shame
But now I'm older I've come to understand
Once we had houses
Once we had land
They rained down bullets on us as our homes collapsed
We lay beneath the rubble terrified

Hoping.. Dare we dream?
We gave up waiting
For us, to dream is still a dream

When I woke up, the house was broken stones
We suddenly had nothing
And nothing's changed

We live, eight people, in this overcrowded heat
Factory-farmed animals living in our own sweat
Living like this is all my baby brother ever knew
The world does nothing. What can we do?

We will kick the ball
We will skip the rope
We will play outside. Be careful
We will paint and draw. We will say our prayers

Outside the pitiless sun bleaches the broken streets
The darkness drops in the evening like an iron door
The men play cards under torchlight
The women stay inside
Hell can erupt in a moment day or night

You ask for trouble if you stray too close to the wall
My father died ..feeding the birds
Mum goes in front of me to check for soldiers

For every hot-head stone ten come back
For every hot-head stone a hundred come back
For every rocket fired the drones come back

For thirteen years the roads have all been closed
We're isolated. We're denied medical supplies
Fuel and work are scarce. They build houses on our farms
The old men weep. The young men take up arms.

We're packed like chickens in this town of block cement
I get headache from the diesel. When it rains, the sewers too
I had no idea what martyrdom meant
Until my older brother.. my older brother
I'm sorry. I can't continue.

You sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind, it is said
When people know they have no future
Can we blame them if we cannot tame them?
And when their hopes and dreams are broken
And they feel they might as well be dead
As they go, will we forgive them
If they take us with them?

Stay close
Stay home
Stay calm
Have faith

With the love of our family we can rise above anything
Someday surely someone must help us
With the love of our family we can rise above anything
Someday surely someone must help us
Even now we will go to school
Even now we will dream to dream
Someday surely someone must help us

Nothing's ever simple - that's for sure
There are grieving mothers on both sides of the wire
And everyone deserves a chance to feel the future just might be bright
But any way you look at it - whichever point of view
For us to have to live like this
It just aint right
It just aint right
It just aint right

We all want peace and freedom that's for sure
But peace won't come from standing on our necks
Everyone deserves a chance to feel the future just might be bright
But any way you look at this - whichever point of view
For us to have to live like this
It just aint right
It just aint right
It just aint right

It's like a nightmare rose up slouching towards Bethlehem
Like a nightmare rose up from this small strip of land
Slouching towards Bethlehem

It's like a nightmare rose up from this small strip of land
Slouching towards Bethlehem

Stay close
Stay home
Have faith

I can't know what twist of history did this to me
It's like a nightmare

With the love of our family
We can rise above anything
Some day surely someone must help us...

One day I'll play you sounds that can't be made
They'll sing in you from somewhere inside your head
You'll never hear them from the earth or the air
You'll never hear them from the outside world

You'll hear it happen inside you
You'll hear it happen inside you
Silent and high
Silent and high
Sounds that can't be made

One day you'll play me sounds that can't be made
I'll feel them humming from somewhere inside your hand
I'll never hear them from the boring ordinary tawdry world
You'll never hear them from anywhere you could call anywhere
I'll make it happen inside you
I'll make it happen inside you
Silent and high
Silent and high
Silent and high
Silent and high
Sounds that can't be made

One day I'll play you sounds that can't be made
They'll sing in us from somewhere inside our heads
No one ever heard them but you and me
We'll make it happen inside us
We'll make it happen inside us
Silent and high

Like the wind blowin'
In the palms of my mind
I feel the wind blowin'
In the palms of my mind

Aurora borealis
Shimmering green and blue
Indigo and violent
Like phantoms half-imagined
Something unreal
But realer than everything
Seeing all the planet's love floating in the air
Caressing you every day

If only we can hear them
Sounds that can't be made
Sounds that can't be made

No it aint just in your mind babe
It's inside you
Dig it out, dig it out
It's inside you

Only love can stop you from merely existing
Play me sounds that can't be made

Lids that close and time that slows the rapid eye
There is no dreaming in the grave
You'll never look into those eyes again
In this world, In this world

So bend your head
The way that flowers bend their heads
I'll pour upon it my love like rain

Bend your head
The way that flowers bend their heads
Love has died
But love is gonna live again

People change and they turn strange and so will I
It makes no odds how we behave
We'll never work out how to live in peace
In this world, With this world

So bend your head
The way that flowers bend their heads
I'll pour upon it my love like rain
Love has died but love is gonna live again
I'll pour upon it my love like rain

In a place where flowers rot and die
In a place where truth lies down and shacks up with the lie
There is still you, There is still you
And longer than this life gives life to you

Bend your head
The way that flowers bend their heads
I'll pour upon it my love like rain

Love has died but love is gonna live again
I'll pour upon it my love like rain
My love like rain, My love like rain, My love like rain

You carry me around
Like loose change jingle-jangling
At the bottom of your bag
You don't seem to feel it though
As you swing down the street
Walking that unique birthday-candle glow
In broad daylight
In broad daylight
And you don't even know.. the way I love you

You never knew power, did you?
Y'thought that power was in a strong arm
People passing laws and gold
Tsunamis and Mushroom Clouds

Oh babe that's nothing..

You think it's kinda sweet
The stammer and the tremble in my voice
But don't mistake it for weakness
Or some kind of incompleteness
Cause round about now
I can feel it tingle-tangling
It's coiled up inside me
And it's ready to blow..

You never knew power, did you?
Y'thought it fizzed in the overhead lines
Burning steel and bone to carbon
Saturn 5 in vertical climb

You never knew power, did you?
'thought it roared like Niagara Falls
Or melted stone under volcanoes
Earthquake-thunder lightning-storms

The way I love you
It's something you don't understand
The way I love you
Took more than I could imagine, even now
You never knew power
All the time you felt so strong
But now you can't function awake or asleep
As the meaningless world falls away from your feet
And the universe ceases it's light-speed retreat
Life was sweet in the meteor-shower
Of the star-high divine
When you sparkled and fell
From heaven to hell

And ten years grinding by in every hour
I know all about power

Listen to the rain
You might feel a tremble
You might feel it

200 fates entwined inside the plane
We watched as England dropped away from us again
I wasn't waiting, I wasn't sure what I would find
I was prepared to let it happen on its own this time
I had a feeling I was floating into time spent amongst friends
Reintroduced from other strange and wonderful weekends
As the seat belt signs announced the fall
I realised I'd been falling for a while
We'd been falling for some time into Montreal

I saw ice upon the river as the plane came in to land
I heard Joni Mitchell singin' her poems of isolation
The man at immigration said his friends all knew the band
Bizarre to come so far to an outstretched hand and easy conversation
We were welcomed through arrivals without the usual transatlantic fuss
And greeted by the fans who led us to the chilly street onto the bus

The snow had hung around on the corners of the vacant lots
And France was singing in the air of hi-rise North America
And as we made our way into the hotel hall
The man behind the desk broke a knowing smile, and said
"Hello sir, welcome back to Montreal."

We hid away for the day in our identical rooms
Like we usually do
Another new bed, upside down in our heads
And afternoon was morning
And night was afternoon
Only the jet-lagged know the way I sleep tonight..

So I Skyped home and said "It's me. How are you babe?
I can't be with you but I can see you on the screen
Technology is wonderful when it isn't in the way
The little one seems older now with every passing day
I hope the vibes are good. I'm behavin' as I should
Going down to breakfast ..What time is it now there?
I'll go shopping for shoes ..or whatever ensues
Je t'aime my darling, Je t'aime my darling
See you soon.."

We were invited to the circus - guests of honour if you please - by a girl with an eskimo name
And in the cafe of the Cirque 'Soleil
We bought Easter-eggs from outer-space
40 different languages are spoken in this place
And inside the steel-glass building I gazed up at the trapeze
The building 30 metres tall - we watched the acrobat fall
He was quite safe
He was falling into Montreal

Down at the sports-bar the ice-hockey never ends..
Down at the sports-bar the ice-hockey never ends..

So up in my room I discovered Leonard Cohen on TV
Live in London. Aint that perfect symmetry?!
It warmed the heart to watch him float around the hall
Soaking up, reflecting, radiating
Just as I would, tomorrow night
On the outstretched tender hands, tender hands
Tender hands of Montreal

The fleur de lis was always kind to me
I'll make the time if ever you should call
The fleur de lis was always kind to me
I'll make the time if ever you should call
And so I shall...

Je t'aime my darling, Je t'aime my darling
Montreal

I left a note each day under your pillow
That I wrote in invisible ink
All you have to do is breathe on them
And you might read them written there in pink
You might find out what's inside me
Maybe it's something that might amuse
As you watch my words appearing
The fear will go
And everything will flow

I'm hoping you don't throw my little notes away
I wouldn't blame you
After all, there's nothing they appear to say
It's not a game, it's simply fear
Stops them being clear

'Cause I'm hoping you don't throw my little notes away
I wouldn't blame you
After all, there's nothing they appear to say
It's not a game, it's simply fear
Stops them being clear

It's not a game, it's simply fear
That stops them being clear
I'm being optimistic here
I'm being optimistic here
Love or fear
Which do you have for me
Love and fear
Which do you have for me

'Cause I'm hoping you don't throw my little notes away
I wouldn't blame you
After all, there's nothing they appear to say
It's not a game, it's simply fear
Always stops them being clear

'Cause I'm hoping
Yes I'm hoping, I'm hoping

It's not a game
It's not a game
Looks like a game
But it's not a game..

Some of us want a fast car
Some of us want to stand and gaze
Some of us pine for the great outdoors
Some of us won't leave the house for days
Some of us have died for their freedom
Some are quite happy in the cage

Some think a wild time
Is what they want at night
But freedom to sleep
Would be complete delight

I truly am
A lucky man
I have everything that I want

Some want diamonds and trinkets and gold
The perfect body and the perfect skin
Witnesses to their good deeds
Willing accomplices to their sin
Some of us pray for absolution
Some want sex and call it love
But freedom to cheat's not something I need tonight

I truly am
A lucky man
I have everything that I want

Some of us want to be a rockstar
Some of us just want more and more and more and more
But I'm not so sure, I think I've been there before..

I truly am
A lucky man
I have everything that I want

I truly am
A lucky man
I have everything that I want

I truly am
A lucky man
I finally have everything that I want

She loves him
But she doesn't want him
She used to burn for him
But now that's changed
She knows he knows
And she says it isn't so
What else can she say?
But when he reaches out
She turns away.

When he talks about it
She says he's cruel
So he apologises
Counts his blessings
What else can he do?
She used to gaze at him reach out with her toes to touch him
She still loves him
But she doesn't want him

And in her eyes, he's so much less
Than the light heart she met
The laughing boy she used to know

He feels ugly now, and the ugliness, creeps around inside him
Until he really is.
The animal paws at him, gnaws at him
The silver-back wins over him

And in his pain, and bitter shame, he resents her.
The one who loves him

They said they'd never lie
They'd learned their lessons from the last times
They said that they could talk
They could always talk
Deceit stirs in them now for reasons good as well as bad

But he wants so much
Not to live another lie
To be free and high again
Trying to see the blue sky above the rain
Trying to see the blue sky above the rain
Remembering the blue sky above the pouring rain
He's trying to see the blue sky above the rain

He's flown there and he's seen it, been up there lighter than air, floating in the miracle
But he can't fly until she wants him
He can't burn until she sparks him
He's dressed in lead from toe to head
Trying to see the blue sky above the rain
Remembering the blue sky above the rain
Maybe they'll talk
Soul to soul head to head heart to heart eye to eye
Rise up to that blue space above the clouds
Where troubles die
And tears dry
Heading West and climbing
In that place the sun never stops shining
The rain's below us.