Written for Amanda Palmer's song writing contest inspired by the 07/13/19 blackout in NYC.
lyrics
It isn’t the same as in ‘77
they hadn’t been burdened with personal lights
that their fingers would find within seconds of darkness
to swipe for an answer in fear of the night
As then, here now
the substations go down
The city’s veins and ventricles
when cloaked in a true evening’s pall
remember what it felt like to be wild
And in the pause a haunting call
ancestral phantoms who once walked
through times as dark or darker still than ours
A chorus of their voices beg
from midtown to the Hudson’s edge
for us to lift our weary heads and fight
Against the powers doomed to fail
our earth and all that she keeps well
or we’ll be in for more than one black night
And we tell them we’ll try
We promise we’ll try
But we say it by pulling up short at dead stop lights
waiting ‘till we know it’s our turn to drive
We say it by singing show tunes on the sidewalk
voices stripped bare and there’s nothing to hide
We say it by feeding each other on credit
with no real concern if the bills go unpaid
Or sharing a drink in our own private glow
while having a talk about powers at stake
It isn’t the same as in ‘77
they hadn’t been gifted with personal lights
that could shine through the darkest of human ambition
to find one another and battle the night
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