Bruce Cockburn – Get Up Jonah

Spoken:
I woke up thinking about Turkish Drummers
(It didn't take long - I don't know much about Turkish Drummers)
But it made me think of Germany and the guy who sold me cigarettes who'd been in the Afghan secret police, who made the observation that
It's hard
to live

Then I was reminded of the proprietor of a Vietnamese restaurant in Quebec who used to be head of the secret police in Da Nang.

And it occurred to me that I was thinking about all of this stuff to keep from thinking about something else - isn't that just what the secret police are all about now

Somebody stands in a window
Watches the river roll
Trains rumble in the foreground
With the weight of approaching dawn

Flames from the refinery rise
Broken red and riveting
And the high vault of heaven
Looks far away and cold

There's a howling in the factory yard
There's a pounding in my head
I'm swollen up with unshed tears
Bloated like the dead.

Blood and ashes
time burning
The skyline dark against the stars
A solitary horse waiting

Lashed to the wheel
whipping into the storm
Get Up Jonah!
It's your time to be born

Get Up Jonah!
It's your time to be born