Political Lies Lyrics - Robin Williamson

In the summer that my son was born 

In the same unchanging town that fathered me 

I retraced many steps trying to fit my own footsteps 

Is it the truth perhaps there is no return 

Political lies, political promises 

This shadow everywhere, the sense of powerlessness 

And you and I left stumbling in their blindness 

The blindness of Wall Street, Moscow, and White Hall 

How many miles I walked by the union canal 

Thinking of the hands that made it, the hands of the navies 

Thinking of the patient horses that pulled along the barges 

Whose tow ropes have rubbed groves on the pillars of the bridges 

And I thought this "What rubs you rubs me" 

Political lies, political promises 

This shadow everywhere, the sense of powerlessness 

And you and I left waiting in the history 

A history of mystery, a history of betrayal 

All along the banks of the union canal 

I walked in the flaming sunset of a summer's evening 

Scottish skin head, glue head, Scottish flag, the tune in his head 

Looks at the sky and asks me "What does it mean?" 

Political lies, political promises 

This shadow everywhere, the sense of powerlessness 

And you and I left basking in the anguish 

The anguish of those we have failed to hear 

In the night I listen to my own darkness 

I think being born and dying have the same tax bases 

I think about the signature of God on the prison 

And about following sides and becoming lost again 

Political lies, political promises 

This shadow everywhere, the sense of powerlessness 

And you and I left with the same old question 

The sheer unspeakable strangeness of being here at all