One step

You can take a chance
Leave it all behind
You can tell the judge
You’re giving up your life of crime
You can start again
Maybe change your name
You can tell yourself
It’s different it’s never going to be the same

One step out walking two steps out running
Three steps out chasing four steps out and you’re lost again

You can slam the door and throw away the key
Put the candle out and blame it on the wind

One step out walking two steps out running
Three steps out chasing four steps out and you’re lost again

Close your eyes turn away your ears
Talk only of yourself ignore your fears
Hide away form the light deep under ground
Whisper in the shadows turn requests for help down
Work hard for the man pay your bills
Think only of the future as what you leave in your will
Measure your success by what you can buy
All the things you own and don’t really need
Well it all must be good if you’re doing ok
Never see the real cost only the price that you pay

One step out walking two steps out running
Three steps out chasing four steps out and you’re lost again
One step two step three steps out and you’re running
One step two step three steps out and you’re running
One step out running one step out running
One step out running one step out running
One step two steps three steps out running
One step two steps three steps out running

The empire’s new clothes

Trading shares in an endless war
Kids with guns don’t know what they are fighting for
The fools are fooled again I think I’m losing my sense
I know what I believe this is something else

Twenty miles short of Babylon’s gates
Smoke and flames and the TV shakes
It’s happening again against the will
of ordinary people who say thou shalt not kill

I can’t see the empire’s new clothes
I can’t see the empire’s new clothes

Bright coloured flags draped over body bags
Thousands more unpeople graves

I can’t see the empire’s new clothes
I can’t see the empire’s new clothes

Five long years hiding behind concrete walls
Swimming in the dictator’s swimming pools
Outside the children play in a burnt out shell
Of an Abrams tank with American letters
Who does count and who is free
For the shiny black slime to lubricate a war machine
I hope they’re satisfied with the mess they’ve made

I can’t see the empire’s new clothes
I can’t see the empire’s new clothes
I can’t see the empire’s new clothes
I can’t see the empire’s new clothes
The empire’s not wearing any new clothes
The empire’s not wearing any new clothes

What tomorrow will bring

Now the guns have stopped and the fighting is over
We crawl out of our shelter and face another day
Sometimes we bury our dead or bandage our wounds
We look to the sky and wonder when this is all going to end
How can we go on when we don’t know
What tomorrow will bring

My father tells a story he says he can remember
As a little boy of six when we were driven from our home
He clung to his grandmother’s dress as they
loaded them onto the trucks
And drove them to the border of a land we still call home
How can we go on when we don’t know
What tomorrow will bring

Will it bring hope freedom peace or justice
Will it bring hope freedom peace or justice

We left one place and it is like war it just follows us
And the distance between us and home
grows longer every day
My sister she is young and soon she will marry
She says, “How can I raise a family
when I don’t know what tomorrow will bring?”

Will it bring hope freedom peace or justice
Will it bring hope freedom peace or justice
Will it bring hope freedom peace or justice
Will it bring hope freedom peace or justice
What tomorrow will bring What tomorrow will bring
What tomorrow will bring What tomorrow will bring
Will it bring hope freedom peace or justice
Will it bring hope freedom peace or justice

Lies and silence

On this sad morning there are no words to speak
The sun itself is weeping for the broken bodies in the rubble
In the soft light of the moon the war machine it roared
Over the quiet breathing restless dreams of sleeping children

All we hear are the lies and silence
All we hear are the lies and indifference

The war machine it rumbles
Over the lives of countless millions
Whose lives are just the dust
Blowing over the ruins

All we hear are the lies and silence
All we hear are the lies and indifference

The serpent tongues are speaking
Words that have no meaning
Except to bounce back off the cameras
In front of which they’re standing

On this sad morning there is no justice in the dawn
So many years of dying where does hope get born
Not over the broken and bloodied bodies of sleeping children
Or the fork tongued lies of the criminals and their defenders

All we hear are the lies and silence
All we hear are the lies and silence
All we hear are the lies and silence
All we hear are lies and silence
Lies and silence
Lies and silence

Sing your song

In these days and weeks that are to come
As hope rises from the shame
Now the killers have turned you can return home
walk the streets of your ruined city
Let me walk in your shoes and with my hands help move the stones
Let me see with you eyes and with my tears wash away the sadness

On this day when we see hope rising on the day you will return home
Underneath the blood red sky of broken dreams and shattered lives
May my breath blow away the dust clear the skies cast out the shadows
May my strength help move the rubble and with each stone
rebuild the bridges

Give me some of that load let me carry it with me
Give me a song to sing until all people are free
Let me help you tip the scales for everyone that was wronged
Give me a voice to sing and let me sing your song

Words were said they touched my soul
gave me hope let me breathe again
I just hope that something comes of what you have fought for
and believed in

Give me some of that load let me carry it with me
Give me a song to sing until all people are free
Let me help you tip the scales for everyone that was wronged
Give me a voice to sing and let me sing your song

I know it has been a long time coming
I know the road is filled with pain and suffering

Give me some of that load let me carry it with me
Give me a song to sing until all people are free
Let me help you tip the scales for everyone that was wronged
Give me a voice to sing and let me sing your song

We will go home

We have lived in these places for many many years
But these places they will never be our home
For the hope that lives in all people lives in us still
One day we will go home

We will go home we will go home
One day we will go home

And we will rebuild our homes out of nothing out of the rubble
And our children will drink the water
that made their grandparents strong and wise
Then the war will be over then our enemies will be our brothers

We will go home we will go home
One day we will go home

Those who have died will never be forgotten
And the blood spilt will not have been for nothing

We will go home we will go home one day we will go home
One fine day
We will go home we will go home one day we will go home
One fine day
We will go home we will go home one day we will go home
One fine day
We will go home we will go home one day we will go home
One fine day
We will go home we will go home one day we will go home
One fine day

Hoola Darweesh’s Homework

Give me my pencil my homework book
What will my teacher say
My homework’s not done

I want to play
I want to be free
Now my world is black
And darkness has come

Mumma can you save me
Take my hand
Guide me through the darkness
To our promised land

Who guides god‘s hand
Who makes god act
The will of god
Or the hands of men

Now I want to die
They took away my eyes
Now my homework will never be done

My lesson today
My pencil in hand
The will of god
Or the hands of men

Give me my eyes so I can see
Give me my eyes so I can see
Give me my eyes so I can see

The Key

It is funny the things you remember
that old and musty chair
The way the light shines through the doorway
the sunlight on your mother’s hair

The view through that window it has changed
that old olive tree is no longer there
And the people who live here now look at us with fear and pity
and their children just sit and stare

This was our house and this is the key
This was our house and this is the key

The daughter returns with some lemon drinks
an old book and a photograph
It is my grandfather in 1917
that proud and noble man stares up at me

What can bring you home
What can bring you home

I got that old key in my pocket not used in 50 years
But it’s shiny and it’s smooth because I’ve carried it with me
on my exile all these years
I take that old key from my pocket
and I leave it on the table by the door
I step out they close the door behind me
into the streets of old Jerusalem

This was our house and this is the key
This was our house and this is the key
This was our house and this is the key
This was our house and this is the key
This was our house and this is the key
This was our house and this is the key

My Spirit

You are my spirit
You are my heart
You are my eyes
You are my love

My spirit touches me
My spirit watches over me
My spirit is carried with the wind
My spirit rises from smouldering flames

You are my spirit
You are my heart
You are my eyes
You are my love

My heart burns with love
My heart flows with the water
My eyes peer through the blazing sun
My eyes cry the tears of love

Touch me call my name touch me call my name
Touch me call my name touch me call my name
Touch me call my name touch me call my name
Touch me call my name touch me call my name

You are my spirit
You are my heart
You are my eyes
You are my love

My love
My love
My love
My love

Virtual world

Hangin your head in collective guilt
In this world full of collective punishment
A new century dawns
Wired to hear the world breathing fast
You‘ve got oil dripping down through your finger tips
You’re alone but you’re not alone

Lady Liberty made of plasticine
Coverin her eyes pretending she can’t be seen
All the words you hear them say are the opposite of what they really mean

Weeds are growing aging fast making every little bit of daylight last
You’ve got a video phone
Colour coordinated matching hair you got brands tattooed everywhere
And a new silicone soul

Sometimes I don’t know what to believe
There are so many great things promised to me
All the things that you can buy so little of which you really need

Monkey man talking to me about god and guns and setting me free
willing or unwilling
Escaping for a while to a virtual world making designer babies
with a virtual girl virtually free

Trying to send myself through the wire so they can digitally reconstruct me
Digital redesign for making friends you’re never going to meet

Lady Liberty made of plasticine
She’s covering her eyes pretending she can’t be seen
All the words you hear them say
Are the opposite of what they really mean
All the words you hear them say
Are the opposite of what they really mean
All the words you hear them say
Are the opposite of what they really mean

Fresh blood on the wattle

Summer time heat and sun
Temperatures rising
Blood on the boil
They’re stoking the flames it’ll be how long
Before there is

Fresh blood on the wattle
Fresh blood on the wattle
Fresh blood on the wattle

Shock jockey poison on the air waves
Politicians a sanatised version of the mob
Manufacturing demons and deeds
But for how long
Before there’s

Ignorance fills the empty heads
Of the puppets of prejudice and poison
No knowledge of the sorry history of the sand
They stake their claim on

How long how long how long how long how long how long

The past sits up and slaps you in the face
A new generation a new disgrace
And fear makes someone their fortune

Lynching mob without the rope
Hanging tree its shadow grows
The only thing missing was a gun
But for how long but for how long
But for how long before there is

Fresh blood on the wattle
Fresh blood on the wattle
Fresh blood on the wattle

Shadows and dust

You never want to know the others
Never want to feel their pain
You never look back at those last in the line
Or into the eyes of those you betray

I just see people running
You just see shadows and dust
I just see eyes with hope in and
Shame is the flag you wave in their face

You never want to walk in the shoes of another
You always need someone to blame
You are never touched by anyone other than yourself
Unless they are almost the same

I just see people running
You just see shadows and dust
I just see eyes with hope in and
Shame is the flag you wave in their face

You say you do what you do to protect who we are
You don’t consider what we have become
When you close the door in the face of another
You’re only locking yourself in

I just see people running you just see shadows and dust
I just see people running you just see shadows and dust
I just see people running you just see shadows and dust
And shame is the flag you wave in their face

A long way

Over the ruins the setting sun
Through the holes in the wall the beams of light
Silhouetted in the sky silent weapons stand
As the day turns to night

And it's a long way on the face of it
For peace to come

The water flows from a broken pipe
In the silence sets the dust
A small child crouches on the road
Doing what we all must

And it's a long way on the face of it
For peace to come

This city is almost ancient
Look at its heart see the scars and the blood
If you sit and you listen
You can hear some people praying

It's a long way on the face of it
It's a long way on the face of it
It's a long way on the face of it
For peace to come
It's such a long way
for peace to come
It's such a long way
for peace to come
It's such a long way
For peace to come