All songs
copyrighted
by David Rood
except as noted.

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Story

Pining away for more Indiana Jones and making do with Stargate, I'd been wanting to write a story-song (as opposed to a poem-song).

To do the descending guitar line, I had to develop a new way (new to me, anyway) to play a C minor chord (for you tablature geeks, it was x3104x).

Lyrics

[G] It feels like the waking from a [F] dream when it [C] stops
And the [D] stars come back into [G] sight
The old and the new in the [F] patterns of the [C] place
Form the [D] light of the night of another [G] world

[G] Coming [Gmaj7] home to a [G7] past or future [C] life
[cmin] Travel [G] brings us to [A] meet [D] ourselves
[G] What we [Gmaj7] find leaves us [G7] questioning [C]
[cmin] Did it [G] come from [A] Heaven or [D] Hell?

We rode through the desert past a pyramid
To the valley in the shadow of a cat
And followed his gaze to the cave where they laid
The woman in the three-cornered hat

And upon her coffin we found
The symbol of the sickle and fire
We had seen it once before
In another place entire

The crescent moon was outshone by
The second, which was full
But we could not see the sky for the trees
In the dark heart of that jungle

High upon a square-topped hill
Stood a curving blade and flame
That had burned a thousand years
To protect the Lady’s name

[emin] Burning is the [bmin] end of things
[amin] Flame is memory [emin]
[f#min] All our [bmin] blades are for pruning
[emin] Still they make us [D] bleed

It feels like the waking from a dream when you see
The answer was plain as day
We step into wisdom when we bridge the gap
Between what we see and what we say

Now we fly as fast as thought
To a place we’ve never been
This is why we all recall
Something none of us has seen

The third one was found in a glacial tomb
Quiet as the top of the world
And she alone wore a beautiful smile
As radiant as any living girl

In her hand was a polearm scythe
And a fire burned in her eyes
We decided to thaw her out
Half believing that she might rise

Oh the hand of Death is small
Quiet as a flame
All our knowledge comes from fears
That we choose to face

When we exposed her face to the air
Her smile fell away with a scream
And the light in her eyes faded from
Charcoal red to moldy green

In those sockets crumbling gems
Of a kind of carbon made
Fell to dust with a sighing sound
As a pungent gas escaped

Now on the side of our ship you can see
The sickle and the fire
A poor mortal remnant of immortal truth
A shadow of our desire

When the rest of us are dead
As I fear we soon shall be
This our metal tomb shall send
Her icon to eternity

Though my flesh was weak
Her spirit is strong
I was her mortal carrier
She’ll take me along

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