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Week 08 - Building A City (02​-​22​-​18)

from Song A Week, Volume 3 by James Tristan Redding

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lyrics

If you’re building a city
Let me share a few words
You’ll need money and courage
And a whole lot of dirt

Grab a hold of a shovel
And a bag of cocaine
Keep your eyes on the prize now
Cause it’s only a game

If you’re building a city
Start by digging a hole
Make it deeper and deeper
Dig until you see gold

Put the gold in a blanket
Wrap the blanket with rags
Raise the rags to the topsoil
Like some tattered old flag

If you’re building a city
What you need is a grave
Somewhere sacred and silent
All your secrets are safe

Tell your men to find God
And strap his arms round a stone
Send him down there to meet you
A divine bag of bones

If you’re building a city
Climb back out from the earth
Make a list of your assets
And their actual worth

Some will sell for a million
But that ain’t why you’re here
No your job is to make
All this peace disappear

If you’re building a city
Make the people afraid
To stand up for what’s honest
Lest they never get paid

Put their fear on a treadmill
Hook it up to the bank
Stuff their souls in the slammer
Let their auras go blank

If you’re building a city
You can take what you please
Hide your hand as you’re dealing
Bring the weak to their knees

Offer hope of redemption
With a tear jerking tease
And they’ll pay you forever
Because the first one was free

If you’re building a city
Remind me to run
To the opposite skyline
With a flask and a gun

If they ask how you did it
Well I won’t say a thing
Until it all crumbles
And they come for the king

credits

from Song A Week, Volume 3, released February 12, 2019

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James Tristan Redding image

James Tristan Redding Nashville, Tennessee

British-American songwriter, singer, audiobook narrator, studio player, Godin Guitars official artist.

Founded global collective www.SongAWeek.org, performance art experience The Under Over: tinyurl.com/uoxuo (song circle underneath a highway) and writing retreat www.TheNashville24.com (annual challenge: write 24 songs in 24 hours).

Cuts by Sarah Harralson, Eli Alger, Emma Gale, David Easterling ... more

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