Bruce Cockburn - Songs - City By The River

Songs:
-- City By The River --
circa 2016 - unreleased

Found on:

Lyrics:

Woman stands in handcuffs
up against the store front chapel
Cops are on their laptops
and snow swirls around her ankles
In the whole wide range of city
a burnt offering on the alter
of the lying lord of commerce
saint more and more forever

City by the river
river full of water
Nothing for the kitchens
of the cities sons and daughters
Hope is getting hopeless
the gap used to be smaller
And that mountain range of markers
keeps on growing ever taller

Well how do you live
how do you live
In the city by the river
city by the river

Take a look around
coming soon to your town
Everybodies downstream
City by the river

Broken things all over
broken glass and broken hearts
Promises in tatters
broken lives that barely startv A city dies of arson
it's forclosed and corrupted
Brass ring green with verdigris
and it's living interupted

Well how do you live
how do you live
In the city by the river
city by the river

Take a look around
coming soon to your town
Everybodies downstream
of the city by the river

Musicians

Editors Note:

First performed in front of Humans, May 14, 2016 - Pegasus Conference.

Wrote with Bonnie Raitt, started out as a song about Detroit, ends up being for all the cities in that kind of trouble.

Lyrics transcribed from the video by Bobbi Wisby.

Known comments by Bruce Cockburn about this song, by date:

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This page is part of The Cockburn Project, a unique website that exists to document the work of Canadian singer-songwriter and musician Bruce Cockburn. The Project archives self-commentary by Cockburn on his songs and music, and supplements this core part of the website with news, tour dates, and other current information.