Sweet Bird of Truth

The The

6 o'clock in the morning & I'm the last person in this plane
Still awake
Why'know I can almost smell the blood washing against the shores,
Of this land that can't forget its past.
Oh the wind that carries this plane, is the wind of change,
Heaven sent and hell bent!
Over the mountain tops we go, just like all the other GI Joes
EE-AY-EE-AY----adios!
CHORUS
This is your captain calling--"with an urgent warning"
We're above the Gulf of Arabia--"our altitude is falling"
& I can't hold her up--"there's no time for thinking"
All hands on deck--"this bird is sinking"
Across the beaches and cranes, rivers and trains
All the money I've made--bodies I've maimed.
Time was when I seemed to know,
Just like any other GI Joe
Should I cry like a baby, or die like a man
While all the planets little wars start joining hands,
Oh what a heaven--what a hell!!
Why'know there's nothing can be done in the whole wide world.
I don't know what's wrong or right,
I'm just a regular guy, with bottled up insides,
I ain't ever been to church or believed in
Jesus Christ
But I'm praying that Gods with you when you die!!!
CHORUS


Lyrics submitted by TheDirge, edited by Mellow_Harsher, colourbird

Sweet Bird of Truth song meanings
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5 Comments

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  • 0
    General Comment
    Thanks to community NFP radio (3RRR Melbourne Australia) I first heard this track when it was released in ' 86, I bought the album at first opp. The words chilled me... Thanks Matt!
    TheDirgeon January 02, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment
    This song was written during the Reagan era, with all the troubles between America and the countries around the Persian Gulf in mind. I think I remember reading an interview with Matt Johnson where he described it as the thoughts of a mercenary on a plane about to crash into the Persian Gulf. Funnily enough, it predates both the Gulf War of 1991 and the more recent American adventures in that area. I never had the album Infected in the '80s, but my best friend did, on vinyl. When I bought it on CD some years later, the version I found had three bonus tracks, 12" versions of Infected, Slow Train To Dawn and this song. The 12" version is even creepier than the album version with wailing pseudo-Arabic musical interludes and voices chanting "Hussein Hussein Hussein" (I think).
    neiledwardon March 04, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment
    War. Matthew J is singing about war. Pure and simple. A fighter pilot in the middle east. That "Arabia, Arabia," chant kinda makes me think, by the way, IF Mr. Johnson was musically inspired by a certain angel-faced ans angel-voiced gentleman from Brixton
    CuteSparkinaon November 27, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment
    Oooops, Typo. Plus, wanted to add something. War. Matthew J is singing about war. Pure and simple. A fighter pilot in the middle east realizing how just plain STUPID and pointless war is. That "Arabia, Arabia," chant kinda makes me think, by the way, IF maybe Mr. Johnson was musically inspired by a certain angel-faced and angel-voiced gentleman from Brixton
    CuteSparkinaon November 27, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment
    And it was about the bombing of Libya by Reagan, with Maggie Thatcher as complicit helper.
    TheSteelGeneralon August 18, 2012   Link

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