|
Music by Lucy Kaplansky) |
|
Late afternoon back in New York town |
|
Waking up as the wheels touch down |
|
Pick up my guitar and walk away |
|
Wish I was going home to stay |
|
Line of taxis, I wait my turn |
|
Tar and asphalt, exhaust and fumes |
|
Beside the road on a patch of ground |
|
Taxi drivers are kneeling down |
|
Beneath the concrete sky I watch them pray |
|
While the people of the world hurry on their way |
|
I think they're praying for us all today |
|
And the stories that fell from the sky that day |
|
CHORUS: |
|
This is the land of the living |
|
This is the land that's mine |
|
She still watches over Manhattan |
|
She's still holding onto that torch for life |
|
Back home fire's still burning, I can see it in the air |
|
Pictures of faces posted everywhere |
|
They say "hazel eyes, chestnut hair |
|
Mother of two missing down there" |
|
I pass the firemen on duty tonight |
|
Carpets of flowers in candlelight |
|
And thank you in a child's scrawl |
|
Taped to the Third Street firehouse wall |
|
There's shadows of the lost on the faces I see |
|
Brothers and strangers on this island of grief |
|
There's death in the air but there's life on this street |
|
There's life on this street |
|
CHORUS |
|
This is the land of the living |
|
This is the land that's mine |
|
She still watches over Manhattan |
|
She's still holding onto that torch for life |
|
Then I got in a taxi, said "Hudson Street please" |
|
He started the meter and he looked at me |
|
I glanced at his name on the back of his seat |
|
And I looked out the window at the ghost filled streets |
|
I noticed cuts on his hand and his face |
|
And I said "You're bleeding, are you okay?" |
|
He said "I'm not so good, got beat up today |
|
And I'm not one of them no matter what they say |
|
I'm just worried about my family |
|
My wife's in the house and she's scared to leave" |
|
And I didn't know what to say |
|
I didn't know what to say |
|
But I said a prayer for him anyway |
|
CHORUS |
|
This is the land of the living |
|
This is the land that's mine |
|
She still watches over Manhattan |
|
She's still holding onto that torch for life |
