The Historian

Intro

(Low drone, bowed bass, single piano note pulsing)

Verse 1 — spoken-sung, low and close to the mic

There is a book

And on the book there is a name

The name is not important yet

What matters is the hand

The hand was old when it wrote this down

The hand was tired

The hand had carried the bones of a thousand years

Across a hill, into a hole, beneath the ground

Verse 2 — guitar enters

I am the one who carried it

I am the one who chose

What stayed in

What got left out

What you would hold

I read a thousand lives

And I cut them down to these

I am not the author

I am the one who kept

Pre-Refrain — half-spoken, almost a whisper

There was a family who left a city

There was a son who would not let go

There was a king who fell on his face

There was a fire, there was a flood, there was a Visit

There was a peace

And then there was not

Refrain — first melodic moment, restrained

These are the plates

These are the wars, these are the words

These are the fathers, these are the sons

These are the bones I carried home

This is the record

This is the record I have kept

Verse 3 — strings build

You will not know me until the middle

You will not know my son until the end

We are not the story

We are the hands that held it

My people are gone now

The other ones are walking through the bones of us

I have one night left

And one son

And one record

Pre-Refrain

And there is Jesus Christ

Walking down the air

Holding the children

And the wounds in his hands

He is the reason

He is the reason the hand kept writing

He is why I cut the thousand years down to these

Final Refrain — soft kick enters, low male hums underneath

These are the plates

These are the wars, these are the words

These are the fathers, these are the sons

These are the bones I carried home

(Listeners: ahh, ahh)

This is the record

This is the record I have kept

Outro — spoken, drone returning to single note

Now then

Let me show you a father

Standing at the edge of a river

With his hand out