Bruce Cockburn Silver Wheels Lyrics

Silver Wheels Lyrics

High speed drift on a prairie road

Hot tires sing like a string being
bowed

Sudden town rears up then explodes

Fragments resolve into
white line code

Whirl on silver wheels 



Black earth energy
receptor fields

Undulate under a grey cloud shield

We outrun a
river colour brick red mud

That cleaves apart hills soil rich as blood




Highway squeeze in construction steam

Stop caution hard hat
yellow insect machines

Silver steel towers stalk rolling land

Toward
distant stacks that shout "Feed on demand" 



100 miles later the sky
has changed

Urban anticipation -- we get 4 lanes

Red orange furnace
sphere notches down

Throws up silhouette skyline in brown 



Sundogs flare on windshield glass

Sudden swoop skyward iron horse
overpass

Pass a man walking like the man in the moon

Walking like
his head's full of irish fiddle tunes 



The skin around every city
looks the same

Miles of flat neon spelling well-known names

USED
TRUCKS DIRTY DONUTS YOU YOU'RE THE ONE

Fat wheeled cars squeal into the
sun 



Radio speakers gargle top 40 trash

Muzak soundtrack to
slow collapse

Planet engines pulsate in sidereal time

If you listen
close you can hear the whine