[Intro] (hum, low and smoky) [Verse 1] Thursday morning the sun came up wrong, Copper-dim behind a sky gone long, A thousand miles of somebody's fire Riding the wind down the northwest wire. In the Gem City we watched it fall, A gray-gold curtain over us all. [Pre-Chorus] They called it a number, three-eighty-nine, Hazardous red on a warning line — Ain't no storm you can hear or see, Just the ghost of a forest in what we breathe. [Chorus] Haze over the Gem City, smoke on the Great Miami, Little pieces of a faraway flame in the air we're taking in. Close the windows, mask the door, The birthplace of flight can't fly no more — Oh, hold your breath, hold it slow, Wait for the wind to let us go. [Verse 2] Grandma's cough and the baby's chest, The ones we love get it worst, not best — Sensitive lungs on a moderate day, Keep the kids in, keep 'em at play. No vacuum, no candle, no smoke of your own, Just wait it out in a quieter home. [Pre-Chorus] By Saturday night it started to clear, Twenty-nine, we could breathe out here — Then Sunday climbed right back to ninety again, Air like a promise that won't quite mend. [Chorus] Haze over the Gem City, smoke on the Great Miami, Little pieces of a faraway flame in the air we're taking in. Close the windows, mask the door, The birthplace of flight can't fly no more — Oh, hold your breath, hold it slow, Wait for the wind to let us go. [Bridge] It don't stay where it started, no border, no name, One country's dry summer is another one's rain — So when Monday comes and the sky turns blue, Remember the days it was breathing through you. [Outro] Sun coming up right again, Clear over Dayton, thank the wind — But we'll know that color, that copper-dim glow, Next time the fire lets the northwind blow. (hum fades)
