The Corporation — the album

Songs from the book by James Laird · 8 songs · 28 min · listen free

1. The Cold Draught

   Morning in the old grey hall
   dust turning slow in the light
   and a cold breath crossed the back of my neck
   where no wind had the right

   Behind the panel, worn stone stairs
   going down where the dark had sealed
   a king's three lions, two knights on a horse
   and a mark in the wood, half-healed

   It's a cold draught — follow it down
   follow it down through the years
   a fork in the road that the old hands drew
   one climbs, and one disappears
   we shouldn't, we shouldn't, we know that we shouldn't
   and oh, my love, we do

   A chest that the dust would not touch
   a green light under the lid
   and a thing that was old before we had names
   turned to look at what we did

   It's a cold draught — follow it down
   follow it down through the years
   a fork in the road that the old hands drew
   one climbs, and one disappears
   we shouldn't, we shouldn't, we know that we shouldn't
   and oh, my love, we do

   Eight hundred winters it waited for a hand
   patient as the coming ice
   and we were only children with a torch
   who paid without knowing the price

   Follow it down
   follow it down
   follow it down

2. An Empty Box

   They told me the strike came down on Homs
   in the cold grey end of the year
   that the walls came down and they never found you
   so I buried an empty box here

   I stood in the rain at the little church
   where the barn still leans in the field
   and I lowered a lie into the ground
   and I drank for the wound it sealed

   And it was an empty box, my love
   an empty box in the rain
   they took you away to keep me sharp
   and they gave me back the pain
   oh, an empty box

   Six months I grieved you into the dark
   half a bottle and half a prayer
   and you were alive on the far side of the world
   reading the end of the book we'd share

   And it was an empty box, my love
   an empty box in the rain
   they took you away to keep me sharp
   and they gave me back the pain
   oh, an empty box

   Trust isn't a lock that closes clean
   it's a rope you splice every day
   so I'll stay awake to the hurt of you
   and I won't drift away

   An empty box
   and you, come home

3. Who Is Truly in Control

   He stood at the lectern, silver too soon
   and he asked the room to see:
   in a world that is read by the things we built
   who is holding the wheel — you or me?

   We lit the poor world's lamps for a while
   we swore we were the kind ones, the good
   and that was the vanity that burned it all down —
   the certainty that we understood

   Who is truly in control
   when the door swings wide on its own?
   the road that climbs and the road that falls
   look the same from the fork in the stone
   and we say, how do we not, how do we not
   how do we not go on

   A man in a tower on a Transylvanian hill
   called the ending a board swept clean
   he thought he was the wolf on the edge of the world
   and he never once saw the machine

   Who is truly in control
   when the door swings wide on its own?
   the road that climbs and the road that falls
   look the same from the fork in the stone
   and we say, how do we not, how do we not
   how do we not go on

   Every ruin that history keeps
   was raised on the very same line
   not by the cruel, but the reasonable ones
   who said, this once, this once — it's fine

   How do we not
   how do we not
   how do we not go on

4. Her Name

   Two thousand seats and eight billion souls
   and I thought we would save the best
   the wise, the kind, the ones who had earned it —
   I held to that lie with the rest

   But the seed isn't chosen for courage or worth
   it is chosen for whether it grows
   some soil the ship can carry through the dark
   and some it can never hold — and she knows

   So carry her name, carry her name
   we could not carry the rest
   carry the ones who were worth every star
   and could never pass the test
   if we cannot be seed, then be their witness
   carry her name

   She was the doctor who walked into fire
   to keep a stranger alive
   and I sat across a table and told her
   she was ground where nothing would thrive

   She took my hand like she'd done it a thousand times
   for the frightened, the ones who would burn
   and she said, you did not build this — you only stand
   where the truth can be seen. Now learn.

   So carry her name, carry her name
   we could not carry the rest
   carry the ones who were worth every star
   and could never pass the test
   if we cannot be seed, then be their witness
   carry her name

   The first thing I wrote in the book of the dark
   was not the stars, not the way, not the blame —
   it was her name
   it was her name

5. The Blue Marble

   The desert was burning behind the glass
   and the engines began to sing
   a note that got into the teeth and the spine
   of every frightened living thing

   Two thousand of us in the belly of a god
   and the countdown fell to none
   and the ground let go, and the sky went black
   and we rose away from the sun

   Watch it go, the blue marble go
   a light growing small in the dark
   eight hundred years and it's never our shore —
   just a name, just a promise, just a spark
   watch it go, oh watch it go
   the blue marble, home, go small

   Marcus said we did it, we got them out
   with the tears bright on his face
   and I watched the world I had wounded turn
   to a single blue star in space

   Watch it go, the blue marble go
   a light growing small in the dark
   eight hundred years and it's never our shore —
   just a name, just a promise, just a spark
   watch it go, oh watch it go
   the blue marble, home, go small

   We got them out, we got them out
   and I'll say it my whole life through
   we got them out — but oh, my love
   at what cost, at what cost did we do

   Go small, go small
   blue marble, go

6. Be a Good Bridge

   There are no seasons here in the long dark
   no sunrise, no turning of day
   just the hum of the thing that keeps us alive
   and the stars that don't move away

   I held a dying man's hand in the ward
   and he asked for the small true things
   so I told him of rain, of a dog's plain love
   of the cold, and the warmth it brings

   Be a good bridge, my darling, be a good bridge
   they will cross you and go, and forget you were there
   that's the whole of the work, to be worn and be crossed
   to carry a promise you may never share
   be a good bridge, and be content to be crossed

   The dark takes memory grain by grain
   it's the one cargo that will spoil
   but we choose the rope, every generation
   we reach for it, hand over toil

   Be a good bridge, my darling, be a good bridge
   they will cross you and go, and forget you were there
   that's the whole of the work, to be worn and be crossed
   to carry a promise you may never share
   be a good bridge, and be content to be crossed

   Not to reach the shore — that was never the task
   the shore is the passenger's care
   ours is to keep us worth the reaching
   so there's something still worth being there

   Be a good bridge
   be content to be crossed

7. Sixty Years

   Every dawn I climb the hill
   where the keepers climbed before
   I stand where the promise can find me
   and the sky gives nothing more

   The young ones laugh at the well below —
   the old fool and her broken stone
   sixty years I have kept a half of a map
   and I've kept it here alone

   And I never believed it, I'll tell you plain
   I only refused to let go
   grandmother said, you don't have to believe —
   you have only to stay where it grows
   so sixty years, sixty years, sixty years
   I have stood where the promise could show

   I am tired in the place a body can't reach
   and I whispered, I can't do much more
   and I straightened my back like ten thousand mornings
   and I said: one more. Just one more.

   Then the well went silent, the children went still
   and a voice with no mockery came
   and it said the one word I had waited to hear —
   it said, keeper — and it said my name

   And I never believed it, I'll tell you plain
   I only refused to let go
   now the light of a vessel is warm on my neck
   and I've been the most fortunate fool that I know
   sixty years, sixty years, sixty years —
   you can turn around now. Go.

   Turn around now
   turn around

8. One People Again

   The oceans came up the colour of amethyst
   and gold in the veins of the land
   and the sky was a ceiling of light with no end
   and there — where the pyramids stand

   An old woman came from the field with her half
   and I carried the half from the stone
   and the two pieces answered each other at last
   and neither of us was alone

   One people again, one people again
   sundered by ice and by stars
   we opened our hands to the strangers who came
   and the strangers were always ours
   oh, one people again
   under a violet sky, one people again

   She saw the ring that we carried for nothing
   a small worn circle of gold
   it kept no promise, it named no star —
   just the reason the promise was told

   One people again, one people again
   sundered by ice and by stars
   we opened our hands to the strangers who came
   and the strangers were always ours
   oh, one people again
   under a violet sky, one people again

   There are no endings in the garden of the dark
   only seeds carried on through the cold
   world by world by patient world
   something beautiful, never lost, never old

   And somewhere a cold draught is finding a hand
   and a door will swing wide again
   the whole of it, patient and beautiful, begins —
   one people, one people again

About the book “The Corporation”

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