[Intro] [Acoustic Guitar Fingerpicking] [Open D Tuning - DADF#AD] [Sparse and Dry] [Lonesome Harmonica Solo - Modal, Dorian Mode] [Raw Production - Room Sound] [Vintage 1975 Aesthetic] [Verse 1] [Nasal Male Vocals] [Storytelling Tone] Well the yellow moon came knockin' on a Leningrad door Where seventeen months had turned the floor to stone And the mothers in their bread-line coats stood waiting for the law To throw them back some word about their own [Verse 1 continued] The typewriters were clickin' out the names of the erased While the commissar was grinnin' through his tobacco-stained teeth Said "Your boy's been relocated to a more appropriate place" But the place he meant was somewhere underneath [Verse 2] Now sister can you tell me what you're carryin' in that sack? Is it food for the forgotten or just prayers wrapped in cloth? The guard says "Keep on movin', there ain't no turnin' back" But you've been turnin' circles since they dragged your husband off [Verse 2 continued] [Slightly more intensity] There's a woman with blue lips who never learned my name She leans and whispers "Can you write this down?" And something like tomorrow flickered through her widow's shame While the Black Marias circled through the town [Chorus] [Strumming Guitar] [Bass and Light Drums Enter] [Harmonies] How many hours, how many gates? How many mothers in this line? The river don't remember and the mountains can't forget That hope keeps singin' somewhere down the line Yeah hope keeps singin' somewhere down the line [Harmonica Solo] [High and Lonesome] [8 bars - Key of D] [Folk Rock Interlude] [Wailing and free] [Verse 3] [Talk-Singing Style] [Rushed Phrasing] They came for him on Tuesday before the roosters crowed When children cry like that the icons weep I followed like a funeral procession down the road To where they keep the keepers of the keep [Verse 3 continued] Now Napoleon's in tatters and the diplomats have fled The tambourine man's playin' for an empty thoroughfare And somewhere Magdalene is countin' up her dead While the moon just keeps on shinin' like it don't know we're down there [Bridge] [FULL STOP] [Tempo Slows - Free Time] [No Drums] [Rubato - Almost Spoken] [Direct Address to Listener] [Intimate, Confessional] If they ever raise a statue made of bronze or made of lies... [Pause] Don't put it where I was born beneath some proud and pointless sky [Pause] Put it where I stood for three hundred hours straight With my bundle and my body pressed against that iron gate [Guitar slowly re-enters underneath] [Verse 4] [Tempo Pick Up - Insistent] [Driving Rhythm - Snare on 2 and 4] [Biting Tone - Sarcastic Edge] The Siberian wind is howlin' through the telegraph wire The number that they gave him ain't the name his mother knew There's a distance between beasts and men that keeps getting higher And I can't tell anymore which one is you [Verse 4 continued] [Venomous Delivery] See the judge, he bangs his gavel like he's hammerin' down fate Says "The Motherland requires what the Motherland requires" But there's mothers who've been standin' at the Motherland's front gate Who remember what she looked like before liars became buyers [Final Chorus] [Full Folk Band] [Electric Guitar Enters - Subtle] [Organ Swells - Churchy] [Louder Vocals - Insistent] How many hours, how many gates? How many mothers in this line? The river don't remember but the mothers can't forget That hope keeps singin' somewhere down the line Yeah hope keeps screamin' somewhere down the line [Outro] [Band Drops Out] [Acoustic Guitar Fingerpicking Returns] [Harmonica Answers Every Line] So pray for me like you'd pray for your own [Harmonica wail] (Seventeen moons) [Echo/Reverb on vocals] Pray for all of us who've turned to stone [Harmonica wail] (Seventeen moons) My man's in the ground, my boy's in the cage [Harmonica wail] (Seventeen moons) And I'm just a footnote on a butcher's page [Harmonica wail - longer] (Seventeen voices calling through the pines) [Voices overlap and fade] [Fade Out] [Harmonica Note Held Long - Unresolved] [Guitar sustains final chord] [Tape hiss] [End]
