There's no beginning to the story
A bookshelf sinks into the sand
A language learned and forgot in turn
Is studied once again

It's a shocking bit of footage
Viewed on a shitty TV screen
You can squint at it through snowy static
To make out what it means

And keep stretching that antenna
Hoping that it will come clear
I need some reception, a higher message
Please tell me what to feel

'Cause I don't know what tomorrow brings
It's alive with such possibility
But I know that I feel better when I sing
Burdens are lifted from me
That's my voice rising

So T-Bone, please keep the tape rolling
Gil, keep strumming that guitar
We need a record of our failures
We must document our loves

I sat too long in my silence
Grown too old in my pain
To shed this skin, be born again
It starts with an ending

And I don't know what tomorrow brings
It's full of such possibility
But I know that I feel better when I sing
Burdens are lifted from me
That's my voice rising

It's not a movie, no private screening
This method acting, I call it living
It's like a fountain, the door is open
We have a problem with no solution
But to love and to be loved

So thank you, friends
For the time we've shared
Your love stays with me like sunlight and air
And though I truly wish I
Could keep hanging around here
My joy is covering me, soon I will disappear

He came dancing across the water
With his galleons and guns
Looking for the new world in
The palace in the sun
On the shore lay Montezuma with
His coca leaves and pearls in his halls
He often wondered the secrets of the world
His subjects gathered round him like
The leaves around a tree
In their clothes of many colors for
The angry gods to see
And the women all looked beautiful and
The men stood straight and strong
They offered life in sacrifice so
That others could go on

Hate was just a legend, war was never known
People worked together and they
Lifted many stones
Then they carried them to the flatlands
But they died along the way
And they built up with their bare hands
What we still can't do today
And I know she's living there and
She loves me to this day
I just can't remember when or
How I lost my way

Copyright: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Writer(s): Conor Oberst