Have you been laid low From the get-go On the road in fine little pieces Did you hear bells And the echoes Of faraway horns in bone dry places How many lampposts Light up the night sky Spitting bright white heat Like the spokes of stars Have you seen their books And in the pages The plain truth and the hard-won fiction The sleek stain of a slow-acting poison Creeping its way down In the trembling ground Around the flagpole Out in the dustbowl And in the wrought iron bars over the window They came for the promise of a great reward And stayed for the golden view And when the gales blew sparks On the travelers in the dark Well, they made do You got your freedom And it weren't for nothing If you can hold down the note and sing it out Remember you were born to the whispering world With a shout Is this your religion What keeps you up nights Who writes the paychecks Who games the markets Who runs the cables Who owns the papers Who spanned the oceans Carved out the acres Ground down the mountain Who made the motors Laid down the train tracks And corralled the soldiers In through the loopholes Out the escape clause Between the captions And guidelines and bylaws Rolled down the falls in a big wooden barrel Over the goal line And into a parade of bright red costumes Shining batons