Hey now, the well run dry
Pages of your book on fire
Read the writing
On the wall

Hoe down, it's a show-down
Ev'rywhere you look, we're fighting
Hear the call

And you know it's gettin' stronger
I can't last very much longer
Turn to stone

Well there's a change in the wind
You know the signs don't lie
Such a strange feelin'
And I don't know why it's takin'
Such a long time

Backyard people
And they work all day
Tired of the speeches and the way
That the reasons keep changin'
Just to make the words rhyme

And you know it's gettin' stronger
Can't make 'em run much longer
Turn to stone


Lyrics submitted by Demau Senae

Turn to Stone Lyrics as written by Terry N. Trabandt Joseph Fidler Walsh

Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Word Collections Publishing, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.

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Turn To Stone song meanings
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6 Comments

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  • 0
    General Comment

    Awesome song, lyrics of a poet. Joe Walsh is one of the most unsung heroes of Rock and Roll

    AWOLon May 17, 2004   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    Very awesome song. It's very political seeming like its a Vietnam or any type of goverment protest song. Especially with the line

    Backyard people and they work all day Tired of the speeches and the way that reasons keep changin' just to make the words rhyme

    awesome awesome song

    MaxBobon March 09, 2006   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    I read that Joe Walsh wrote this as a later response to the Kent State Schooting. He was a student their breifly. It is a great song. I blew out the subs in my car listening to it.

    ImNeilYoungon May 25, 2011   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    The timeless quality to this song is amazing! Were the song to come out now, it would still be most relevent. I heard once that the line "Pages of your book on fire" was in reference to passages in the Bible coming true. IE Mathew Chapter 22 and beyond: Earthquakes in diverse places, nations will hold each other in derision, wars and rumors of wars, ETC.

    Purkinjeon August 01, 2012   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    this song rules

    murphyhurtmeon January 17, 2013   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    It can mean whatever you want it to, but this is what Joe Walsh said in a Rolling Stone interview:

    "Turn to Stone" was written about the Nixon administration and the Vietnam War and the protesting that was going on and all of that. It's a song about frustration. Also, I attended Kent State. I was at the shootings. That fueled it, too. In those days it felt like the government's priority was not the population. They had an agenda that was about something other than doing what was necessarily good for the country. -Joe Walsh

    LeeRockeron September 29, 2023   Link

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