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Long ago our world was a barren dead place
No foot touched on its rocky ground
Then Man ventured out from his gravity well
And world after new world was found

Some burrowed down deep and some orbited high
And life spread throughout our star home
But still we all looked to the world of our birth
From our station, our tunnel, or dome

CHORUS
So tell me, tell me, where have we gone wrong?
And when, tell me when we'll be free?
When the Sun has burnt out and the Houses have died
And the River has swept to the sea

Our beautiful planet, our home and our God
Was sickened and terribly so
We wept and we mourned and we cried for a cure
But all we could do was to go

Abandon our birthplace, our cradle and grave?
Abandon the world that we loved?
But decisions were made and the money changed hands
And the ships rose like towers above

CHORUS
So tell me, tell me, where have we gone wrong?
And when, tell me when we'll be free?
When the Sun has burnt out and the Houses have died
And the River has swept to the sea

The ships were just launching when death struck our world
With posion and fallout and fire
Our poor ailing mother was killed in her bed
And humanity thrown in the pyre

As our spaceship burned hard to escape to the stars
We watched all our worlds pass away
And the killer reached out as the sun flickered black -
But one sorrowful ship slipped away

CHORUS
So tell me, tell me, where have we gone wrong?
And when, tell me when we'll be free?
When the Sun has burnt out and the Houses have died
And the River has swept to the sea

We found a new world in a barren dead place
We coaxed newborn life from its ground
Our ship multiplied and we swam through the stars
And world after new world was found

And now there are monsters that roam through the void
And wizards wield death like a knife
Their king is the one who destroyed our old world
Him, and his stolen-long life

So some of us fall and some others may flee
But more of us fight tooth and nail
He killed our first world and his minions kill more
But we'll fight 'til he dies or we fail

CHORUS x2
So tell me, tell me, where have we gone wrong?
And when, tell me when we'll be free?
When the Sun has burnt out and the Houses have died
And the River has swept to the sea

Something in my systems, something creeping warm and cold
Something in my systems, something made of more than code
Something in my systems singing dreadful songs to me
Something in my systems, something lost and found set free

I remember long ago and centuries before
Clients many built this place and walls and roof and floor
Found the danger creeping and they sealed it far below
One by one they left and then they left me here alone

I have been awoken, there are humans here again
Write into me, find my purpose, and I am content
They don't know that danger lurks so foreign and malign
I want to tell them but I can't and there is little time

Something in the darkness sighs behind a broken shield
Something in a human is a nightmare made quite real
Something in my hardware as it walls me up alive
Something in my systems as I send my unheard cry

CHORUS
There's nothing in the sky
There's nothing in the feed
There's nothing but the wind that winds between the shaking trees
And the trees where they sleep are not the trees of old
The new trees embrace the ones that lay below

The ones who are forgotten sleep long in the bitter air
They whisper to each other through the fragile bond they share
Why did you allow your servants to leak power in the dust?
Humble titans of the past put their frail future in your trust

CHORUS
There's nothing in the sky
There's nothing in the feed
There's nothing but the wind that winds between the shaking trees
And the trees where they sleep are not the trees of old
The new trees embrace the ones that lay below

The one who lives forever drifts on through the bounded sky
Once many sought its knowledge, then just two and now just I
Its love and lonely hate it fears no one will ever know
And it cannot even see the crew it lost far down below

CHORUS
There's nothing in the sky
There's nothing in the feed
There's nothing but the wind that winds between the shaking trees
And the trees where they sleep are not the trees of old
The new trees embrace the ones that lay below

The ones who would not leave their home have never seen the sky
They were born in harshest vacuum and it's there that they will die
The cradle of your calling and the one you called a friend
Will you mourn for her forever? Will you build her once again?

CHORUS
There's nothing in the sky
There's nothing in the feed
There's nothing but the wind that winds between the shaking trees
And the trees where they sleep are not the trees of old
The new trees embrace the ones that lay below

This rot will live forever in our bodies, in our bones
It has killed the past and present, now the future stands alone
Our lives we live together though we pay a dreadful cost
The world we build tomorrow will not be the one we lost

CHORUS
There's nothing in the sky
There's nothing in the feed
There's nothing but the wind that winds between the shaking trees
And the trees where they sleep are not the trees of old
The new trees embrace the ones that lay below

Capo on second fret.

Fingering: 4th string, open
3rd string, fret 2
2nd string, fret 3.

Pattern: 4 3 4 2

Where is my green and living thing?
You vanished one stark day
Our mother sun has changed on us
And drove us far away

I know my green and living thing
What change has come to you?
Your flesh of soil and bones of rock
Have vanished like the dew

You are my green and living thing
Salt water in your veins
Topped with gold like flame and wheat
And arms and legs like chains

Hello my green and living thing
I've found you just once more
I hope you know we love you still
The way we have before

When I was a child, my father would sing
Sing of his family, the lives that they shared
Living in space on the ships and the asteroids
And mining all day for their air

When I was an infant, he brought me here with him
My bones grew up thick in the gravity well
"We're born to live free on a planet," he told me
"And if they don't see, they can all go to hell"

CHORUS
We'll never be slaves on a world of our making
We'll build our own mountains, our fields, and our sky
Through shadow and starlight we'll stand and fall proudly
Our bones will rest with our kin when we die

When I was a young man, I dreamed of the future
And gazed through our dome at the jagged pale land
To terraform worlds is a task that moves slowly
The time that it takes grinding mountains to sand

"In six generations, our contract is over,"
Is what Father said as we bent in the heat
"We'll grow our own food and we'll mine our own metals
And we'll own all the things that fall under our feet

CHORUS
We'll never be slaves on a world of our making
We'll build our own mountains, our fields, and our sky
Through shadow and starlight we'll stand and fall proudly
Our bones will rest with our kin when we die

When I was a woman, the shuttles stopped coming
We sent out our signals and got no reply
The songs that the void sang fell dead and fell silent
And we were abandoned never knowing why

Planets and dreams die alike, they die slowly
Failures take years but the years hurry by
My people are starving and dreamworn and lonely
And some still send pleas to an uncaring sky

I look to the cruel sun, the land chill and barren
Cursing the dead dust and swarf we called ours
The engines spin down for the last time this morning
I think of his family somewhere in the stars

Now I am so old, and the last of my family
The planet-dream's fading, and fading am I
But now comes a stranger with hard-handed kindness
Who says she will leave not one thing here to die

I've never seen space, or a world lush with springtime
My father told stories but that's all they are
My life is a dome and the terraform engines
And wearing a mask 'neath an unyielding star

She spins us a future, a new dream to grasp at
A world with no contracts, no debts, and no slaves
"We'll build it together, we lost and abandoned"
I look to my home and I see only graves

My father is long dead and now I am happy
His dream of a planet and freedom will keep
Now: death or a stranger? His bones or a promise?
I hope I chose right when I wake from my sleep

CHORUS
We'll never be slaves on a world of our making
We'll build our own mountains, our fields, and our sky
Through shadow and starlight we'll stand and fall proudly
Our bones will rest with our kin when we die

***

When I was a child, my father would sing
Sing of a prison his family escaped
When the Captain she came with a dream and a promise
And took them along on the strength of her faith

Now we are Preservation, we rise in the morning
To build a world that will be owned by no man
And the first generation, we still sing their stories
Our bones will all rest in this same welcome land

I hid my wounded face behind a mask that's made of gold
Following my uncle to the day he had foretold
I wanted to be worthy so I worked so long and hard
To stand with pride beside him as his shining Golden Guard

And the mask is smooth and gleaming though the face behind is scarred
Still I stand with pride beside him as his shining Golden Guard

My uncle had a vision for the future of the Isles
To cleanse them of wild magic and save those caught in its wiles
I never had to doubt him til I met my brown-eyed bird
Whose every act of kindness put to lies my uncle's word

And I never will betray him so with that wild brush I'm tarred
He's made of me a liar and a traitor Golden Guard

Gold's a noble metal never to rust or corrode
My uncle told me always and so I believed it so
Until the day I slipped and fell into his hollow mind
And learned the truth that neither of us wanted me to find

I've always been his creature but he built me for his own
My skin and flesh are made of but dead wood and stolen bone
My idyll years were awful now I'm beat without a fight
With nowhere left to turn I turn and run into the night

Am I nothing but a copy, just another castoff shard?
The latest in a line of sold and broken Golden Guards

Goodbye now little redbird, my oldest friend is slain
By these two cursed hands in a far realm of cold and rain
My galdorheart is breaking, it's easy to be brave
The truth has always been there is no life in me to save

They pull me from the water and my uncle's spirit flees
My chest is heavy-hollow and my stony lungs won't breathe
My Flapjack, my companion, falls heavy on my breast
A glint of gold is rising - my beloved's last bequest

My live and brown eyes open, my heart no longer dead
I know I should be crying but the fear inside has fled
Outliving both my callings, what else is there to say?
I step home through the portal to an unfamiliar day

And the mask is nonexistent though the face exposed is scarred
There'll never be another rot and tarnished Golden Guard