It will not be a tender fire
Upon your postcard mountains
No golden children will write hymns about
The slow defeat of your reckless destiny

Bullets in the bellies of babies
Sleeping in the strangest places
Indifferent to the blinding grace of
The vapor trails and burning waste
Of your baptist skies

Oh, to live in a burning house
With burning children eating dust
And finger painting flags
Smoke pours out of their eyes
They're praying and saluting

Hey, okay
Kiss me slowly
Beneath the dripping leaves
Of our train track trees
Though sickly and diseased
Some weeds thrive anyways

It will not be a tender fire
Upon your postcard mountains
No golden children will write hymns about
The slow defeat of your reckless destiny

This fence around your garden
Won't keep the sky from falling...


Lyrics submitted by bootu

American Motor Over Smoldered Field song meanings
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4 Comments

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  • 0
    General Comment

    I can not get over the power of this song. It's so postmodern, musically and lyrically. They inter-twine so many devices to sum up a dark outlook on a possible future. I love how the lyrics end on reckless destiney, then explode into an intoxacating wall of beutiful violin lines, triads being plucked on guitar and an uplifting bass and drum line.

    Prophet_for_profiton April 11, 2006   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    i'm pretty sure the last line of the song is "won't keep the ICE from falling"

    this song is just ... fantastic. i'm in total concurrence with prophet.

    ELMOnsteron May 21, 2006   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    These are the official lyrics, though he does say "ice" on the record.

    bootuon September 19, 2006   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    He says it a thousand times, maybe he says both sky and ice at some point. However, if he did say something that sounded like "ice," it must have been "eyes."

    Gladiuseon August 11, 2008   Link

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