The High And Mighty Road – John Cale & Bob Neuwirth

Before the end of the beginning, before the finish credits role
There is a brief but brutal truth along the high and mighty road
Faces tend to run together, names be lost and legends told
Of the ways to be forgiven on that high and mighty road

There is a will to test the power, there is the struggle for control
Of the basic rights of passage along the high and mighty road

It is a journey for the taking, it is a choice that can be made
It is the soul that may be shaken, it is the spirit to be sane

There is hypocrisy and wonder, when fortunes pale and empires home
To an ancient way of magic along a high and mighty road
Money changers seeking payments for the privileged to be so bold
To say the train is not too crowded for a high and mighty road
And the courage may be tested, by judgement harsh and cold
From the monitors of progress along that high and mighty road

There are the words that have been spoken, there is the life that’s been portrayed
It is a promise to be broken, it is the joy that dies in vain

Pale treasure, fragile beauty, or the messages set in coal
We delivered as nostalgic on that high and mighty road
Sacrifice and deprivation are spiteful paradoxes sold
As begrudging restitutions along that high and mighty road

And yet the faces, oh God the faces, they seldom change from young to old
They only seem to grow more brazen along the high and mighty road

It is the future we are trading, it is the prices that we pay
It is the mind that is mistaken, it is the heart we give away