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I’ve always considered this one of Jackson Browne’s deepest lyrics, and this is a brilliant performance.

Jackson Browne performs “Before the Deluge” with guitarist Val McCallum

From the album, “Late for the Sky.” Click here to listen hyperurl.co

Recorded and performed for Downstream, a virtual concert benefitting the Tennessee Riverkeeper whose mission is to protect the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers and their tributaries by enforcing environmental laws and educating the public.

Click here to learn more about their work and how to help: tennesseeriverkeeper.org

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LYRICS:

Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent
They were gathering the tools
They would need to make their journey back to nature
While the sand slipped through the opening
And their hands reached for the golden ring
With their hearts they turned
To each other’s hearts for refuge
In the troubled years that came before the deluge

Some of them knew pleasure
And some of them knew pain
And for some of them it was only the moment that mattered
And on the brave and crazy wings of youth
They went flying around in the rain
And their feathers, once so fine grew torn and tattered
And in the end they traded their tired wings
For the resignation that living brings
And exchanged love’s bright and fragile glow
For the glitter and the rouge
And in a moment they were swept before the deluge

Now let the music keep our spirits high
Let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by
When the light that’s lost within us reaches the sky

Some of them were angry
At the way the earth was abused
By the men who learned
How to forge her beauty into power
And they struggled to protect her from them
Only to be confused
By the magnitude of her fury in the final hour
And when the sand was gone and the time arrived
In the naked dawn only a few survived
And in attempts to understand a thing so
Simple and so huge
Believed that they were meant to live after the deluge

Now let the music keep our spirits high
Let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by
When the light that’s lost within us reaches the sky

Written by Jackson Browne
Swallow Turn Music, ASCAP

Publishing administrated by Drive Music Publishing

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