No Contention

Verse 1

Come and sit beside me, child

Let me tell you about a world

You will not see again

The world I grew up in

Verse 2

There were no rich

There were no poor

There were no closed doors

There was no name we called another

That was not the name of brother

And the names we used before

We did not use anymore

Verse 3

I was born after the Lord had come and gone

But the old men who saw him taught me every song

They taught us how to pray

They taught us how to share

They taught us how to walk past a stranger and care

Verse 4

We held everything in common, every loaf, every coin

We rebuilt the cities and the roads to rejoin

The valleys that the earthquakes had torn apart

And we did it with one heart

Chorus

And there was no contention

No contention in the land

No contention, child, no contention

We held each other's hand

Verse 5

Your grandfather was the son of a fisherman

I was the daughter of a man who tilled the ground

And no one cared that we had married down or up

We just married for love because that's what we had found

Verse 6

Children were not hungry

Old men died in their beds

With their daughters reading scripture

Beside their pillowed heads

There were no soldiers

There were no wars

There were no men who would not let their neighbors

Walk through their doors

Chorus

And there was no contention

No contention in the land

No contention, child, no contention

We held each other's hand

Bridge

For two hundred years

We lived this way

Generation after generation

Passing the peace down

Like a lamp

Carried from house to house

Verse 7

But I am old now, child

And I have started to see

Some men with more than the others

Some men with less than they need

Old names rising in whispers

Names I had hoped were gone

Names my grandparents prayed we would never speak again

Verse 8

You will live in a different world than I have lived

I do not know how different yet

But I want you to remember

There was a time we did not

Need locks on our doors

There was a time we did not

Need swords on our hips

There was a time we knew each other

By more than our names

Final Chorus

And there was no contention

No contention in the land

No contention, child, no contention

We held each other's hand

Outro

Remember this, child

Remember this when they tell you it is normal

To sleep with a sword

To lock your door

To call your neighbor by an old name

It was not normal

Once