[Beneath the Dam] [ Verse 1 ] Lewis drives the International to the ridge's edge Where the gas pumps rust and mountain air is thick A boy with a vacant stare on a wooden ledge Picking five-string banjo, rhythmic and quick [ Pre-Chorus 1 ] Concrete world is fading in the rearview mirror frame Looking for a wildness that doesn't have a name [ Chorus 1 ] When the world is stripped away and nothing stays the same You find out what you’re made of when you lose the social game It’s a heavy weight to carry when the shadows start to grow Facing down a darkness that the city doesn't know [ Verse 2 ] Bobby and Ed are cornered where the river makes a bend Two men with rusted shotguns emerge from out the pines The peace of morning comes to a violent, bitter end While the water churns through ancient timber lines [ Pre-Chorus 2 ] The rules of men are useless when the law is out of sight Keep your breathing shallow and vanish in the light [ Chorus 2 ] Survival isn’t kindness and it isn’t being right It’s instinct in the marrow when you're forced into the fight A price for every second that you're breathing in the air Silence is the only thing that answers every prayer [Instrumental Break - Fingerpicked Acoustic Guitar Solo] [ Bridge 1 ] Frantic, high-pitched picking echoes off the stone A five-string banjo screaming like a secret best left lone Traded smiles for terror on that porch of rotting wood Before we understood that evil looks just like the good [ Verse 3 ] Ed grips the recurve bow against the limestone wall Scaling up the cliff side while the sniper waits above One blood-slicked arrow flies before the hunter has to fall Trading in the mercy for the push and not the shove [ Pre-Chorus 3 ] Lewis says: don't just think about yourself in this current When the water turns into a cold and killing torrent [ Chorus 3 ] You face a bitter truth: it's not always about you When every single plan you made has fallen out of view Can’t negotiate with fate or demand a helping hand You only get the choices that your spirit can withstand [ Bridge 2 ] Swore a pact of silence as we shoveled through the clay Burying the evidence of how we threw our souls away Then a nightmare hand starts rising from the surface of the deep A memory that never dies and wakes us from our sleep [ Verse 4 ] They’re building up the concrete dam to drown the valley floor To hide the flooded forest where the past is lying still The town of Acoonee won't be seen by anyone no more Beneath the rising water and the shadow of the hill [ Pre-Chorus 4 ] You’ve got to make your mind up, no excuses left to find Leave the broken pieces and the bodies far behind [ Final Chorus ] When everything is taken and there’s nothing left to save You realize the river is a cradle and a grave The finality of knowing that the debt is never paid Living with the ghost of every choice that you have made [ Outro ] The water keeps on rising The banjo's getting thin The river hides the secrets Of the men we might have been
