VERSE 1 (voice and guitar only) I have sung into the silence And the silence answered back I have followed every calling Down a long and lonesome track I have stood on every stage And given every part of me And tonight the doubt is sitting Like a stone I cannot see PRE-CHORUS (bass enters) I'm not asking for an answer I'm not asking to be saved I'm just asking for the morning Like the one my grandmother craved When she sang in the dark When she sang in the dark CHORUS (full rhythm section, organ swells) We are dark before the dawn We are tired but we go on We are every soul who ever Held the night and kept the song We are broken, we are standing We are doubting, we are strong We are dark before the dawn But the dawn is coming on VERSE 2 I can hear the others breathing In the darkness all around Nine of us in one direction Nine of us still making sound And the doubt that sits upon me Sits on every one of them And we carry it together Which is how it loses strength PRE-CHORUS (choir enters distant, like hearing church from far away) I don't need the light to know it I don't need the sun to trust That the morning doesn't ask us If we're worthy or we're just We were always dark before the dawn We were always dark before the dawn CHORUS (choir closer now, fuller) We are dark before the dawn We are tired but we go on We are every soul who ever Held the night and kept the song We are broken, we are standing We are doubting, we are strong We are dark before the dawn But the dawn is coming on BRIDGE (everything drops to Hammond organ alone) (Jackson speaks, barely) There is a moment Between the dark and the light When you don't know which way it's going. When you've given everything And you don't know if it was enough. That moment is not failure. That moment is the last thing before the dawn. Stay. (choir builds from silence) CHOIR (building): Stay. Stay. Stay. FULL BAND ERUPTS: FINAL CHORUS (gospel wall of sound, triumphant now) We were dark before the dawn Now the dawn is all we are Every night we held the music Was a navigation star We were broken, now we're burning We were lost, now we're the song We were dark before the dawn AND THE DAWN HAS COME THE DAWN HAS COME THE DAWN HAS COME OUTRO (choir humming, fading) (Jackson, quiet but certain) Stay. The dawn always comes.
