One Foot Before the Other

On the very day I die, the very last of my desires

Is that you taken my broken body and commit it to the fire

And then when the fire is finished, scrape the ashes in a tin

Take them down to London's drinking reservoirs and throw them in

And then specks infinitesimal of my mortal remains

Will slide down seven million throats and into seven million veins

And I will creep through their capillaries to the marrow of their bones

And they will wake to bright new mornings and then wordlessly they'll know:

That I remain

I am remembered

I remain

I am remembered

So these seven million innocents they will have me in their blood

And when they die they'll burn their bodies or be buried in the mud

And I will spread through streams and rivers like a virus through a host

From the hamlets to the cities, from the rivers to the coast

And from there into the channel, across the great Atlantic ocean

And ever onwards to the new world through the water's gentle motions

Until parts of me are part of every landmass, every sea

In the rain upon your crops, and in the very air you breathe

I remain

I am remembered

I remain

I am remembered

(I remain)

And though the things I love will be washed away in the rain

I remain

I'm not convinced of the existence of these things that don't exist

Yeah, by Jewish boys with big ideas and scratches on their wrists

By a loving or a vengeful God, or one who'd condescend

To wash his hands down in the mire among the misery of men

Or by ever turning circles hanging timeless in the sky

Like a dreamcatcher distracting from the fact you're going to die

But I place one foot before the other, confident because

I know that everything we are right now is everything that was

That Wat Tyler, Woody Guthrie, Dostoyevsky, and Davy Jones

Have all dissolved into the ether and have crept into my bones

And all the cells in all the lines upon the backs of both my hands

Were once carved into the details of two feet upon the sand

So we remain

We are remembered

We remain

We are remembered

(We remain)

And though the things we love will be washed away in the rain

We remain