Pain of Salvation

[LongLife]

Water

[Music: D.Gildenlow/D.Magdic]

Ground water moves very slowly. While water at surface can be measured in
meters per second, the ground water will more likely be measured in meters
per year! Contamination of the ground water causes severe damage for a very
long time.

Despite this, military and nuclear industry constantly pollutes large areas
of ground water - in times of peace.

I've always loved the sound of rain
Touching so softly my windowpane
And then the scent of dew at dawn
Coming to greet me from my moist lawn
...home...
[D. Gildenlow]
I always took it for granted
I never valued the drops I shed
I failed to see the relation
Between my self and world starvation
[D. Gildenlow]

Water's for the chosen
But how come we expect us to be those few...
...me and you?

[In this hot, desolate timeglass I met this man, wearing a worn old flyer's cap. Every day he had to dig 10 feet down for his daily ration of water - one poor gallon. And so he did - singing while doing it!]

10 feet of sand for the thirst
But he gave me half of what he was given for a day
All for thirst and sanity use
While we use up hundred times more:
What do we do with it?
Pipes and bathtubs, sprinklers and fountains!
Freshwater used as a dump for oil and nuclear waste!
"Desert people turns humble" he said
They know what they have
But do they know what they lose when we flush?

[But yet, sadly, he looked up to me. Felt a need for our greed: our "freedom". Said all he really wanted was a car and a radio. He too failed to see the relation ...between our lives...and his starvation]

Water's for the chosen
Water's for the few
Life is for the chosen
But only if we believe it to be true...but we do!
(But I'm through!)

I've always loved the sound of rain...

 

[LongLife]

Home

[Music: D.Gildenlow]

'The white man, he comes and goes. He can go. ...But that's our homeland for
thousands of years. That's our home, and we will never leave. No matter how
contaminated it gets. We live there! We have always lived there and we will
always live there.'

This is our home - our roots go deep
Where our ancestors sleep
This is the land we've nursed for countless aeons
But never ours to keep
My tribe is crying - our land is dying
But we can't leave - this is our home
We can't let our past go...

We're left with your legacy
Wide awake, deep at our roots
While you move on exploiting
We'll sing lullabies for half a million years

When my son asks why, what will I reply?
But we can't leave - this is our home
We can't let our past go...

[Hallgren]
[Hermansson]
[D. Gildenlow]

But we can't leave - this is our home!
If you like concrete alone
Then don't make your high lives depend
On that past that you let go...

[III: Karachay]

 

[LongLife]

Black Hills

[Music: D.Gildenlow]

'They tell all the people of Europe, it's a good, clean industry, it's a
great way to save the world. But I'm here to tell you that now they're
knocking on our door because they can't find any place to store the damned
stuff for eternity, They come to our homeland and they want to lease some
land for 10,000 years!'

This was our home - we had our truth
Bled for our creed - why must we still bleed?
Your tailings are bound forever in this ground...
So you come for our holy ground
When your nature's gone and your house has burnt down
No!

For hundreds of years you've hurt this land
Eating what's there, leaving a wasteland
But there are no space to hold all your mistakes

Still you come for our holy ground
When your nature's gone and your houses are all burnt down

[instrumental]

[Hallgren]

'To this day, they will not return our sacred land, even though their
highest hypocritical court said that we could and indeed did, own the
Black Hills. I still continue to struggle for the eventuality of regaining that sacred land.'

 

[LongLife]

Pilgrim

[Music: D.Gildenlow]

'In fire, we can see our past and our coming. For, as with us and our time,
these flames are solely born through the complete and utterly consumption
of its surroundings. By which, the fire itself is also condemned to be
destroyed. Demanding, beautiful and very lethal, it lives itself to death...'

The higher I am reaching - the closer to the sun
The more I learn the less I know for sure
For each machine I'm leaving I find a bigger one
For each step I turn wiser than before
But it's burning me...
Pilgrim, where are you going?
Pilgrim, your roads turning bleak
Pilgrim, true to your knowing
But what will you pay for the Grail that you seek?

Though these roads seem endless
And life seems out of reach
The roads I left were better off unwalked
If I had just been stronger
If I had dared to see
Maybe I would not have had to go this far
But still I won't give in...

Pilgrim, where are you going?
Pilgrim, your roads turning bleak
Pilgrim, This quest is your calling
...the curtains are falling...
Pilgrim, where are you going?
And who sets the price on the answers you seek?

 

[LongLife]

Shore Serenity

[Music: D.Gildenlow]

Karachay: This lake in Kyshtym has swallowed nuclear waste for almost fifty
years now. Radiation was earlier so high that one hour at the shore of this
lake would cause death in just a few weeks. Karachay, the entire lake, is
now covered with concrete...

Don't disturb me now
I can see the why, the when and how
Looking back to see all bridges burn
I have reached the point of no return
this is zero
(Shore Serenity)
This is all that is left of me:
A broken man at a broken sea

To be or not to be a wheel in the big machinery
That is not the matter of the game
Just as long as you can sense the frame of the big picture
(Wheels make The Machine)

This is all that is left of me
a broken man at a concrete sea
But now I know that one cell can kill
and a big Machine stands and falls with... a wheel...

 

[LongLife]

Inside Out

[Music: D.Gildenlow/D.Magdic/F.Hermansson]

'30 years ago, society believed that no price was to high, we thought that
industry could come at any cost. We cannot afford to pay that price any
more.'

So finally my journey ends
And through this wound my soul can mend
Guilt is my blood
I'm being drained
This is my home, I will stay...
...inside!
There's always someone inside
Fighting to get outside
The "knowing-right-from-wrong side"
Our home is inside!

I've travelled the world around
In search for some Grail of mine
How could I be so blind?
It was always here:inside
I have only some weeks to give
But at last... I live
[D. Gildenlow]

Life's just a line of situations
A matter of occasions
And mystic correlations
The work of a Machine!
[D.Gildenlow/Hallgren]
[Hallgren]

Here in a world split to nations
We fail to see the relations
Between the Wheel and the Machine
And of the scars we're leaving...

...inside!
I swear there's someone inside
Fighting to get outside
Just give it all an hour
By the Concrete Lake!
[D.Gildenlow/Hallgren]

'I dread the day my children will ask me why. I dread the day when I will
have to explain to them that people thought it was acceptable to destroy
the environment so that we could have jobs. I dread the day I will have to
explain to my bright-eyed Joshua, who talks to dogs and listens to the
grass screaming, that we were all to busy driving fast cars, rushing our
children off to day-care, and finding seniors' homes to our grandparents
and listening to the ringing of cash registers.

We were all too busy to hear the grass screaming.'

 

[LongLife]

Timeweaver's Tale

[japanese bonus track]

[Music and Lyrics by D.Gildenlow]

The Timeweaver's abode is deep under ground
As interweaving history he us creates
He weaves in eternity not to be found
The Elder's legend that braids our fates

Hoary and hollow-eyed, older than sun
Abiding his destiny to reverberate time
There's no one to remember how it began
In rooms filled with candles he reverberates time

Timeweaver, tell me my history that I've been searching so
Timeweaver, reveal the mystery that I've been letting grow

He once was given his mission by three...
The Holy, The Sacred and The Ancient Dream
He doesn't exist for those who don't believe
He's nothing but stories for those who don't deem

Hoary and hollow-eyed, older than sun
Abiding his destiny to reverberate time
There's no one to remember how it began
In rooms filled with candles he reverberates time

Timeweaver, tell me my history that I've been searching so
Timeweaver, reveal the mystery that I've been letting grow

Spider's webs decorate dusty shelves lightened by old candles glow
Ancient prescriptions from times that don't even exist
In memories

[D.Gildenlow/Both/D.Gildenlow/Hallgren]

Guarded by spells he reincarnates time
Gives birth once again to a century's child

Hoary and hollow-eyed, older than sun
Abiding his destiny to reverberate time
And now I can remember how it began
In rooms filled with candles I reverberate time

Timeweaver told me a history I didn't want to know
Timeweaver revealed the mystery - two became one to grow!

Timeweaver...
...time...will...be...here...now...and...

Now!

 

[LongLife]

Beyond The Mirror

[southamerican bonus track]

[Music and Lyrics by D.Gildenlow]

Through a dusty window I watch the clouds draw near
A lovely vision of my doom
The sunlight's fading - reflections start to dim
Through the dusty window in this room

I'm walking through my memories as I'm staring through the glass
I have to claim I'm innocent
Though I can't remember what I've done these past few nights
I can't be the one that Father Kane believes I am

I see myself now, in the dusty glass
All wired up in this chair
My face is foreign and my weary eyes are black
I see myself through that stare

Eternal alleys that lead to walls hidden behind unlocked doors
I claim the handle, I need to see
Even though I'll surely be afraid of what I may find...

...beyond the mirror!
(Inside the circle)

I walk through mazes of cold corridors
Searching for the core of my mind
My heartbeats reach out to find another pulse
That once was bound and confined

The two different heartbeats, becoming one
Are causing the coalescence of my soul
A quiet outcry - a silent scream - is filling me as I am driven back
From shadows that dwell...

...beyond the mirror!
(Inside the circle)

[Hallgren/D.Gildenlow/Both/Hallgren/D.Gildenlow/Both]

My world is frozen as I'm staring through the glass
Gazing through the window at my memories
Not longer foreign
Though I somehow wish...they were

The glowing fingers of a violent raging sky
In search for evil find a path
They rush through my veins, they invite my pulse to die
They end my life with frenzied wrath

Amidst the shadows of whisper land
I feel that something's binding me to life
Confined in nowhere by no ones hand
I realize the pact is unfulfilled
I'm trapped on the edge...

...beyond the mirror!
(Inside the circle)

 

[LongLife]

Spirit of the Land

[Music: D.Gildenlow]

Sit for a while, why rush?
The beauty is all around.
The red sky of the morning,
the different colours of the landscape,
the freshness of the breeze.
So sit for a while and rest
with the spirit of the land.
[-John Renshaw]

[I: Part of the Machine]

 

[LongLife]

Used

"I am the unclean
The black drop at the bottom of your cup
You'd better drink or throw me up
'Cause I am on your lip and tongue
God
I'm not yours as much as you are mine
So let me in to be your lung
Just breathe me deep and take another sip
So still
A taste so sweet but so bitter the kill
Still on your lip
You are so close
I'll let you come
Between my legs you are closer death than sun
And I'm not your daughter as much as you're my son
I'll let you come
In my mouth on your lip
So ready and thirsty for the next sip
You let me in, I let you come
I'd never let you down
You let me win, I let you drown!"
Getting used to pain

I am crying unwept tears through this violence
I'll die trying to break this thick crust of silence

"I am the greatest star
So bright that you all come forth and beg to taste my light
I can take you far but I'll burn you out before we get there
But hey! Who am I to stand in your way?
Go ahead; swallow me down!
I'll have no problems finding myself out
When you've gone down
When your all cracked and wound."
Getting used to pain

I am crying unwept tears through this violence
I'll die trying to break this thick crust of silence

Trading pain is a bad deal
I've got more than my share
Too much to bear!
Every beat of the hammer
Every blood stricken street:
A way to trade off heat.

They will bleed till I'm empty
If I deserve to die I'll make it show
I will stain your affection, I will wear out your heart
You'll follow where I go

Blood stains
Cut veins
Filthy
Murder
Leave me...