Telegraph Road

A long time ago came a man on a track Walking thirty miles with a sack on his back And he put down his load where he thought it was the best He made a home in the wilderness He built a cabin and a winter store And he ploughed up the ground by the cold lake shore And the other travellers came walking down the track And they never went further, no, they never went back Then came the churches, then came the schools Then came the lawyers, then came the rules Then came the trains and the trucks with their loads And the dirty old track was the Telegraph Road Then came the mines, then came the ore Then there was the hard times, then there was a war Telegraph sang a song about the world outside Telegraph Road got so deep and so wide Like a rolling river And my radio says tonight it's gonna freeze People driving home from the factories There's six lanes of traffic Three lanes moving slow I used to like to go to work, but they shut it down I've got a right to go to work, but there's no work here to be found Yes, and they say we're gonna have to pay what's owed We're gonna have to reap from some seed that's been sowed And the birds up on the wires and the telegraph poles They can always fly away from this rain and this cold You can hear them singing out their telegraph code All the way down the Telegraph Road Well, I'd sooner forget, but I remember those nights Yeah, life was just a bet on a race between the lights You had your head on my shoulder, you had your hand in my hair Now you act a little colder like you don't seem to care But just believe in me, baby, and I'll take you away From out of this darkness and into the day From these rivers of headlights, these rivers of rain From the anger that lives on the streets with these names 'Cause I've run every red light on memory lane I've seen desperation explode into flames And I don't want to see it again From all of these signs saying, "Sorry, but we're closed" All the way Down the Telegraph Road