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A Prayer For The Sane (single)

by Danny Schmidt

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about

This has been a challenging last three years. Here in the US, we've always been a two party system, and we've always had differing opinions on the best way to solve difficult problems. But we used to approach those conversations from a shared sense of reality, a common foundation of facts, and a mutual aspiration towards truthfulness.

Lately, it's felt like we don't even agree on what's up and what's down, that the sky is blue, or that backwards is backwards. And so we can't even begin to have a rational conversation about how to resolve some of the hard problems facing our society. It's felt as though we are living in two separate universes. There's been a cognitive dissonance that's intensified past the point of discomfort, and into the realms of dissociation, rage, and madness.

It's time to unsplinter the world, and begin to rebuild our sense of collective purpose.

lyrics

A PRAYER FOR THE SANE

Tear the world in half
The haves from have-not halves
They built a fire between us
And hoped like hell to raise the Phoenix

Tear the world in two
The truths from the half-the-truths
The lies and the bad disguises
From the facts and Nobel prizes

These were once good lands
Of good neighbors and good friends
We used to fight like dancers
One call with different answers

These were open lands
And strangers were our future friends
But fences make for consequences
We’re prisoners of our own defenses

Now our heart’s been broken
Lost our way but found it stolen
Hidden in a storm of nothing
A hurricane of newsmen blushing

Now our eyes are bleeding
Tears of the loss of reason
A pool of our own objections
Honest men with no reflections

Here’s the choice my sister
Gentle warrior, fierce resistor
Fill the sky like blackbirds
Or sit and watch the world spin backwards

Here’s the choice my brother
Old soldier, different drummer
March hard to break the borders
Or stand guard the old world orders

Here’s the choice my child
Raise your hands and reconcile
While the king kneels down before us
It’s time for you to rise in chorus

It’s time to set our anger free
It’s time for facts to shade beliefs
It’s time to name the new north star
It’s time for flames to skewer the dark
It’s time to shake the voting booth
It’s time for us to scream the truth

Now’s it’s time my friends
Time to make us whole again
Just as the world revolves
Let’s get these broken days resolved

credits

released April 7, 2020

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Danny Schmidt Austin, Texas

Named to the Chicago Tribune's "50 Most Significant Songwriters in the Last 50 Years," Austin, TX-based singer/songwriter Danny Schmidt is considered a preeminent writer, an artist whose earthy poetry manages to somehow conjure magic from the mundane, with lyrical depth drawing comparisons to Leonard Cohen and Townes Van Zandt. ... more

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