[Verse 1] Bass drum hit like a heartbeat, boom boom boom Three blocks away through the Quarter, filling up the room White suit, top hat, parasol moving slow Nine brass players in purple sashes, laying it low Just a Closer Walk with Thee, each note hangs in the air Nina got her daddy's horn now, forty years of breath in there The hearse rolls through on Bourbon, flowers purple and gold This ain't a funeral, baby, this is how we celebrate the old [Pre-Chorus] Cemetery gates swing open, family walks inside Band stops playing, crowd goes quiet, holding onto pride Silence at St. Louis, waiting for the sign Bass drum calling from the tomb now, one last time [Chorus] When the ancestors dance, they dance with us tonight When the ancestors dance, the dead and living hold it tight Nina raised that horn and played it fast, grief turned into fire Handkerchiefs up, parasols spinning, second line going higher When the ancestors dance, they never really left When the ancestors dance, the tradition holds its breath [Verse 2 - spoken word] This is Jocelyn on GhostWire, broadcasting live from the French Quarter That drum you hear? That's the heartbeat, that's what keeps the line moving West African tradition says the drum calls the spirits Nina playing Prophet's horn, that instrument knows him, it remembers him Four decades of breath, technique, and soul absorbed in that brass My grandmother used to say a New Orleans funeral is when the living and the dead dance together The second line isn't following the funeral The second line is the dead joining the living The ancestors don't leave, they just change form [Pre-Chorus] Cemetery gates swing open, family walks inside Band stops playing, crowd goes quiet, holding onto pride Silence at St. Louis, waiting for the sign Bass drum calling from the tomb now, one last time [Chorus] When the ancestors dance, they dance with us tonight When the ancestors dance, the dead and living hold it tight Nina raised that horn and played it fast, grief turned into fire Handkerchiefs up, parasols spinning, second line going higher When the ancestors dance, they never really left When the ancestors dance, the tradition holds its breath [Bridge] Knowledge doesn't live in books, it lives in hands that play Songlines across sixty thousand years, still singing every day Custodians not owners, we carry what we're given Pass the horn to the next generation, keep the chain unbroken, keep on living The land remembers every story, the music holds the dead As long as somebody keeps playing, nothing's truly gone instead [Final Chorus] When the ancestors dance, they dance with us tonight When the ancestors dance, the dead and living hold it tight Nina raised that horn and played it fast, grief turned into fire Handkerchiefs up, parasols spinning, second line going higher When the ancestors dance, they never really left When the ancestors dance, the tradition holds its breath When the ancestors dance They dance with us They always will
