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Now That the Future's Behind UsNow That The Future’s Behind Us(© words and music by Andy Hill) There’s blood on the tracks where this peace train used to run Where the face of the executioner and the victim are one The sleeping ghost of superstition wakes as technology knocks At the gulf between facts and wisdom on the path where madness walks Nothing dies as ugly as custom like a covenant that binds us And where are we to turn now that the future’s behind us? In Salem there’s a celebration, I can smell those embers burnin’ You can bet the shakin’ beneath the feet is from the forefather’s turnin’ Is it for the sins of the father that you persecute the son? And you protect the hand that wields the weapon But you won’t take away the gun These Ol’ North winds just keep fanning the flames Like a guilty conscience reminds us And where are we to turn now that the future’s behind us? A drunk soldier wakes on a park bench the battle gone but always near Takes a drink each time the faces of the ghosts become too clear It’s the voice of the commanding general Always heard but never seen An American flag burning in the wind of every broken American dream He who captures the imagination may lift or tighten the veil that blinds us And where are we to turn now that the future’s behind us? He wakes with a copy of the Beverly Hills Courier at his ear And stares straight through a photograph of the Humanitarian of the Year Place no medals on my uniform, no honors on my head But decorate my tombstone with this epitaph instead Beneath death’s protective shelter lies a fool who once believed That a man could kill his fellowman and not regret the deed Our eyes they met by accident from his bench he caught my stare And asked me to administer his last rites then and there I’m not qualified I answered and I hurried off in fear He said neither is the minister of the faith that put me here God, a glimpse I wish in the face of this Of the purpose for which you designed us Cause I don’t know where to turn now the future’s behind us A preacher from his pulpit An artist from his muse A politician from his platform Each one road must choose I learned more from disillusionment than I ever did from perfection Said the artist at the funeral on the dawn of the election Oh, somewhere on that clouded horizon lives the dream that once defined us But I don’t know where to turn now the future’s behind us |