1. |
The Rules
02:41
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I didn’t change the world changed
It was a dry spring then the fires came
The province burned and the people turned
Their faces away from the heat of the flame
But we were born in the heart of the flame
The fire breathed and we became
The fire spoke and we started saying
The province burned till the rains came
I didn’t change the world changed
I didn’t change you changed
Your face is cold your voice is strange
You're at the centre of the wind ragin
You're at the centre of the storm onstage
I call to you with your old name
The one you used to use in the old days
but you got the speed of a wild fire
and you got the weight of a freight train
I didn’t change you changed
I didn’t change the rules changed
The fire plays tricks and man plays games
Man digs a ditch but the wind keeps blowin
The ministry lands says time to get going
You try and call a thing by it’s old name
And the heli loaded to Fort St James
You try and respect the old forces
But the fires at the house when you remember the horses
And we were born in the heart of the flame
The fire breathed and we became
The fire spoke and we start saying
The province burned till the rains came
I didn’t change the rules changed
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2. |
Southern Ontario
02:07
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When the leaves begin to turning
And many months I’ve been on the road
There’s a place for which I start yearnin'
Back home in Southern Ontario
I’ve gown weary of this burden
And soon the sky will turn to snow
When my back and knees are hurting
I look to Southern Ontario
You were all that was ever certain
Wherever I did go
But you have gone where I cannot follow
No more in Southern Ontario
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3. |
Ford Straight 6
02:21
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My love for you is a Ford Straight 6
Goes zero to sixty in about 2 minutes (3 or 4 if I’m drunk)
But it’ll stay at sixty with a load of bricks
or firewood or ready-mix
My love for you is a 4.9
All them pistons in one straight line
It’s got belt squeals and injector ticks
My love for you is a Ford straight 6
My love for you is built ford tough
And it don’t need none of that additive stuff
87 octane’s more than enough
Drink of oil if she’s running rough
Our love is too simple and dumb to break down
But bring your tools if your leaving town
Good thing parts are cheap and easy to fix
My love for you is a Ford straight six
My love for you is fuel injected
O2 sensor mix detected
PCM pulse-width corrected
Stoichiometrically perfected
My love for you don’t ever change
Gets high torque in the low range
Every once in a while the throttle sticks
My love for you is a ford straight 6
Long after the frame is rusted over
Calipers seized upon the rotors
Chassis hauled off by a front end loader
That old motor’ll turn right over
That's a motor that never quits
Million clicks and she still kicks
My truck don’t do no party tricks
My love for you is a ford straight 6
Hey baby your so fine your a 4.9 outta 4.9
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4. |
We Could Do Anything
02:06
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We could run away from the world together
Laugh at them and say let em have each other
Outlaw kingdom come uncover
And we’ll survive off one another
You and me baby we could do it
We could do anything
We could take over the world together
Tell people the truth and treat them better
Benevolent rule through all bad weather
The spirit of the rule right down to the letter
You and me baby we could do it
We could do anything
We could go down with the world together
Slowly sinking in the freezing water
When the crew's all fled and the fuels on fire
We could play with the band till the final hour
You and me baby we could do it
We could do anything
It could be me and you verse the world together
9 round bare knuckle belt contenders
Odds against but the payouts better
We could do good work together
You and me baby we can do good things….
We could do anything
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5. |
Right By You
02:00
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Coquihalla Caribou
nothing can hold on to you
Lake Huron woman way out west
but only ever passing through
I cannot do right by you
Colombia Similkameen
We saw the night sky glowing green
Folks like us burn gasoline
And folks like me burn bridges too
I cannot do right by you
Athabasca Assinaboine
West wind over the prairies blowing
Back to where you came from going
Every word I said was true
But I cannot do right by you
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6. |
Yellowstone
03:39
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All of your fancy clothes
Your beautiful clothes
Won’t mean nothing when Yellowstone goes
The scientists know
There might be a God but there’s fire down below
All your beautiful homes
In perfect rows
Ruins for scavenging coyotes and crows
When Yellowstone goes
Ashes will cover this country like snow
I was told a man must choose
But I never chose
Afraid to lose and afraid to let go
When Yellowstone goes
I’ll be the same as the rest I suppose
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7. |
Skeena Headwaters
04:18
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At the Skeena headwaters where the salmon still run
and the fisheries tag them by where they come from
and I’ll trade the tags for a half decent sum
at the Skeena headwaters where the salmon still run
My boy, my boy, I can still see your smile
When I was a young man and you were a child
Your mother was beautiful but already tired
The fishes were many, the river was wild
At the Skeena headwaters where the Salmon still run
and the fisheries tag them by where they come from
If the fish are still swimming there’s work to be done
at the Skeena headwaters where the Salmon still run
My boy my boy, you shouldered such weight
The burden of a people, the bindings of fate
Each man must choose the paths that he takes
You were nineteen years old then, and two thousand too late
At the Skeena headwaters where the Salmon still run
Counting them fishes is all that I’ve done
and it’s three years today since I buried my son
at the Skeena headwaters where the Salmon still run
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8. |
Same Old Story
03:08
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Well I don’t mind it
Doesn’t bother me
No I don’t mind it
Doesn’t bother me
I get in the truck when the sun comes up
By my own free will and my own damn luck
And I break my back for a buck
And I bust my knees like a beggar for a coin in the cup
And they say “hold on, hurry up”
And I climb to the top and I crawl down in the muck
It’s the same old story
It’s the same old story
But I don’t mind it
Doesn’t bother me
I don’t mind it
Doesn’t bother me
I have been in a big old burn
Where nothing grows and no one learns
The government comes with great concern
To plant lodgepole pine where you can’t grow fir
The larch all dries up the pine goes to seed
And the beetle burrows in the young pine tree
It’s the same old story
It’s the same old story
But I don’t mind it
Doesn’t bother me
I don’t mind it
Doesn’t bother me
I have been the disease and the mange
On the side of a hill in the Beaufort Range
And I seen across on the other side
Big cedar trees three meters wide
And looked at my feet and seen the bones
And the salal growing on the limestone
It’s the same old story
It’s the same old story
But I don’t mind it
Doesn’t bother me
I don’t mind it
Doesn’t bother me
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9. |
Goddamn Coast
03:10
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I’ll tell you the place I’m gunna go
Down East in the Kootanai-o
That's the place I’m gunna stay
on the banks of the Big Columbi-eh
Up here on the coast you get a nickel spend a dime
Just working for the folks that come for two months at a time
They got the big Alberta money or they sold up in the city
This goddamn coast is too goddamn pretty it’s a tragedy
Chorus
Up here on the coast you get a dime spend a dollar
You can rent a hole to hide in if your working as a faller
But the big old stands of timber still get sold across the ocean
This goddamn coast is too good for growing it’s a tragedy
Chorus
Up here on the coast you get a dollar spend a fiver
Working people up and down the coast all trying to MacGuyver
Home in a trailer boat wherever you can find it
This goddamn coast has got too good a climate it’s a tragedy
Chorus
Up here on the coast you get five spend ten
There’ll be a faucet up at Kitimat dispensing bitumen
I’ll cross my fingers for you fellas but that's all that I can offer
This coast has got too much damn salt water its a tragedy
chorus
Up here on the coast you get ten spend twenty
They've got 100 year old houses sold for dollars on the penny
But the wealthy and the working people figure that its worth it
This goddamn coast too goddamn perfect it’s a tragedy
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10. |
That Beast
03:29
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That beast consumes with a burning hunger
That beast boils with a bubbling anger
That beast belches with a powerful pressure
That pushes the piston that drives the pin
And the cold rolled, drop forged
Hardened tempered, jig bored
Crank rod pulls forward
And the valve opens up and brings it round again
Thunderbird sinks his talons in Leviathan
And the earth shakes with the flood tide coming on
Diesel’s bastard brainchild born in Bethlehem
Now is slouching down to Babylon
That new beast has six burning bellies
Six stainless coronary arteries
Six lungs exhale fire and ferocity
Six steel hammers suckin wind
The new refined oil burns hotter
A pump must cool the thing with water
Heavy metal devil’s daughter
Hauling whole new eras in
Thunderbird sinks his talons in Leviathan
And the big fly wheel goes round n round n round
Diesel’s bastard brainchild born in Bethlehem
Now to Babylon goes slouching down
And somewhere deep where the sun don’t shine
In Sitka Spruce and Oregon Pine
A cruiser dreams in yarding lines
In turn radius and grade
Like rutting elk for who breeds first
Here these machines will prove their worth
While falling giants shake the earth
And bets are being made
Thunderbird sinks his talons in Leviathan
And the earth shakes with the flood tide coming in
Diesel’s bastard brainchild born in Bethlehem
Now in Babylon gets born again
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11. |
The Changeling
03:55
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I created something, it was beautiful it was amazing
But it just kept changing
At first it was shiny and clean, a well oiled machine
Bearing ways true and cutting edge keen
Cast iron, case hard chrome-moly and manganese
And the breath of life that I had breathed
So I opened the door and the light all came in
I said there are dangers out there but I’ll protect you from them
And from the dark and the dust with eyes wide open
For the first time it saw outside my little home kingdom then
I created something, it was beautiful it was amazing
But it just kept changing
And all the new noises that it started making
That I thought must be imminent failure indicating
Were just the thing I created creating
Whole new modes of communicating
I had taught it to self diagnose, to throw trouble codes, it started
telling stories and debating
I taught it to crawl and it started skating
Started smoking drinking and dating
We stopped relating this thing started hating me
It took my hand in it’s hand with strength I never gave it
And signed all the papers that emancipated
itself from it’s wicked creator
I created something, it was beautiful it was amazing
But it just kept changing
I had created this thing in my own graven image and
fallen in love with my image within it
I thought that people would know me by it but they
saw my good work and forgot that I did
The thing that I thought owed me everything
Walked away severing all ties and communication lines
And years passed dial tone in my ears till at last
When I found that old creation of mine
I saw in it’s eyes across chasms miles wide
My own sadness and pride, back spasms and lost
time late nights and drawn blinds
Cold rice sore wrists tendinitis of all kinds
And I saw that it, like I, had learned a strange thing
We don’t truly create we’re just rearranging
The thing I’d created and lost had
created and lost it’s own little changeling
I created something, it was beautiful it was amazing
But it just kept changing
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