[Verse] A mother counts the change twice before she buys the bread. Her son keeps asking questions she doesn't answer yet. A stranger holds the elevator for a man with both hands full. Five seconds of consideration can make a hard day pull. A woman leaves her wedding ring beside a hospital bed. Her sister stays beside her, though neither knows what's ahead. Someone curses at the traffic, then stops to let a child pass. The smallest acts can contradict the worst things people have. [Pre-Chorus] I see the bruise beneath the sleeve, the tired eyes that won't let me believe. Then someone stops and gives their place, and I don't know which truth to embrace. [Chorus] Beautiful from a distance, when the details lose their place, when the hands that hurt each other blur behind a softer face. Beautiful from a distance, when the suffering seems small, I can almost call it wonderful when I cannot see it all. From far away, it almost works, From far away, the good still lives beneath the quirks. From far away, it softens its strange existence, And all seems Beautiful... Beautiful from a distance. [Verse] A father waits outside the school, his pride still written on his face. Three streets away, another man is shouting at the crowd. A nurse removes her gloves at six and calls her mother home. Someone else spends every evening making sure nobody's alone. A photograph can hide the years that came before the smile. A headline turns a human life into a single line. We say that people disappoint us, then somebody proves us wrong. The evidence keeps changing before we know where we belong. [Pre-Chorus] One hand can close around a fist, another pulls a stranger from the mist. One voice can tell you people fail, another makes that argument derail. [Chorus] Beautiful from a distance, when the suffering has no face, when a lifetime of decisions fits inside a narrow space. Beautiful from a distance, when the damage can't be heard, when compassion looks enormous because you missed the little hurts. From far away, the pain seems small, From far away, one name could stand for all. From far away, each private loss loses its significance, And all seems Beautiful... from a distance. [Verse] Everyone wants the world explained, simply one side innocent, the other guilty. But everything and everyone leaves a mark, and nothing is always as it seems. Good things even happen in the dark. Like the person who first looks away, then turns around and decides to help and stay. I see how little it takes to escape the traction to turn the tide to humanity, from selfish action. [Bridge] The world can hold two truths at once, a wound beside an act of trust. The same hands that can cause the pain can choose to break the pattern again. I cannot make the picture clean, or separate the good from all the bad I've seen. The closer that I let it come, the less I know what it will become. [Final Chorus] Beautiful from a distance, but closer, every detail stays, the kindness and the damage that survive in different ways. Beautiful from a distance, yet nothing here is simple truth, the world can break your faith in people and still reveal their better proof. [Outro] Some things look better from far away, where truth can hide beneath the day. But every life contains the strain, the quiet kindness and the pain. I hope that one day we will overcome the contradiction and the world will become beautiful in every condition. The world keeps turning, bright and strange, with every loss and every change. I know all the good isn't gone, it works differently from the perspective you look upon. Beautiful from a distance and I want it to be Beautiful... Beautiful, regardless of the distance. Beautiful...
