Chasing Coin

We paved the garden for a parking lot sale
Put a price tag on the Sunday choir
Grandma’s recipes in plastic on a clearance rail
History boxed up by the fire

Kids learn numbers long before they learn names
Quarterly reports instead of lullabies
Teacher counting test scores
Cutting arts again
Paint-stained aprons
Final goodbyes

When the bottom line is the bottom of the world
We sell our stories for a dividend swirl
Every old song turned to background noise
End of a culture
(Chasing coins)
End of a culture
(Chasing coins)

Library turned into a premium gym
Losers pretend they are born to win
The local paper just a pop-up ad
Truth outsourced to whoever pays in advance

Granddad’s union jacket on an auction page
Signed by strangers
Shipped overnight
We trade our courage for a click and a raise
Scroll through the ruins by the blue phone light

Is this all we are?
Margins and charts?
What’s the value of a hand on your shoulder?
Of a language lost
A promise kept
What’s the profit on getting older?

Track from the album "Smoke And Mirrors"