Bruce Cockburn Night Train Lyrics

Night Train Lyrics

Not a knife throw from here you can hear the night train passing
That's the
sound somebody makes when they're getting away
Leaving next week's hanging
jury far behind them
Prisoner only of the choices they have
made

Night Train...
Night Train...

Ice cube in a dark drink
shines like starlight
The moon is floating somewhere out at sea
On an
island in the blur of noise and color
Alcatraz, St. Alina, Patmos and the
Chateau D'if

Night Train...
Night Train...

And everyone's an
island edged with sand
A temporary refuge where somebody else can
stand
Till the sea that binds us like the forced tie of a blood oath
Will
wear it down, dissolve it, recombine it

Anyone can die here they do it
every day
It doesn't take much effort though it goes against the
grain
And the ultimate forgetfulness of violence
Sweeps the landscape
like a headlight of a train

Night Train...

Ice cube in a dark
drink shines like starlight
Starlight shines like glass shards in dark
hair
And the mind's eye tumbles out along the steel track
Fixing every
shadow with its stare

Night Train...
Night Train...

And in the
absence of a vision there are nightmares
And in the absence of compassion
there is cancer
Whose banner waves over palaces and mean streets
And the
rhythm of the night train is a mantra