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I Have Been To The Mountaintop, But It Wasn't There

from I Call The Living by Samuel Lockridge

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lyrics

Harvest moon so near above my eyes,
Greet these singing embers as they rise.
Mountains stripped for gold as black as sin,
Love and rage, my heart ablaze within.

My gaze into the river not returned,
Blackened by the ancient stone they burn.
One hundred years is long enough to learn!

I look to the hills but they’re shrinking fast,
And my love runs cold, and the water runs black,
And I’m gasping for oxygen as my lungs fill with ash.
Even here, you know, where no wild things grow,
You still reap what you sow.

You haul sixteen tons and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
St. Peter, don’t you call me, cause I can’t go;
I owe my soul to the company store.

Digging faster won’t outrun disaster.
The servant will bring justice, not the master.
Flesh and blood, not false but not quite true,
Hides that you are me and I am you.

O, dear flame, make ashes of these bones,
‘til man and land at last together groan,
“There’s a time to gather and to scatter stones!”

(Chorus)

You haul sixteen tons and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
St. Peter, tell the people to gather their stones;
We’re taking back our souls from the company store!

Gather the stones! Gather the stones!
Scatter the stones! Scatter the stones!

credits

from I Call The Living, released October 20, 2014
David Mahler: Hammered Dulcimer
Patrick Rush: Cello
Mason Self: Drums

Group vocals by Theillalogicalspoon and friends.

Inspired by "Sixteen Tons," by Merle Travis

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Samuel Lockridge Kentucky

Samuel Lockridge is a singer-songwriter, producer, sound designer, and theatre artist based in Lexington, Kentucky.

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