[Verse 1] The mud of the avenue is soft beneath the heel Before the world was hardened into rubber, glass, and steel We stood beneath the steeple and we gathered in the haze In the slow and steady movement of those unrecorded days No one was a stranger when the rain began to fall We shared the same wet sidewalk and the shadow of the wall. [Verse 2] I might not hold your gospel, and you might not hold my view But I’d walk a mile beside you just to hear what you knew We’d argue on the corner till the trolley hummed along With a civil tongue between us, even when the wind was strong For the mind was like a garden, and the talk was like the rain And we didn't need a curtain just to hide away the pain. [Chorus] Oh, give me back the city where the faces weren't a blur Where a word was still a promise and a man would keep his word Where we traded heavy silence for a debate in the light And we walked home in the sepia at the turning of the night Just a circle of the living on a common piece of ground Before the silence of the wires was the only living sound. [Bridge] Now we're shouting across canyons made of silicon and spark Throwing stones at one another from the safety of the dark But look at how they moved back then—a shoulder to a sleeve With enough respect to listen... and enough heart to believe. [Outro] The Capitol is waiting in the mist of yesterday While the people and their voices slowly fade into the grey But the ghosts are still there talking... If you listen to the rain. On the common ground... In the sepia rain.
