Family And Pain

Well, we’re talkin’ family and pain,

How it travels down the line,

From a father to a son,

And a son in his own time.

A symptom of ego,

A heritage of lies,

A love that lost its way

Through anger in the eyes.

We’re talkin’ family and pain,

But we all say we’re fine.

There’s blood in the water,

And iron down the throat,

A bottle full of heaven

For a man that lost his hope.

Draw a line there in the sand,

Tell yourself it’ll stay,

But the tide rolls in each evenin’

And steals yesterday away.

We’re talkin’ family and pain,

Passed along through the vein.

Granddad carried secrets,

Daddy carried shame,

And every generation

Found a new word for the same.

A hard hand on the shoulder,

A cold look in the rain,

A child learns what silence means

Before he learns his name.

We’re talkin’ family and pain,

And the debts that still remain.

Well, I walked beside the river,

And I stared into the flow,

Wonderin’ if the things we carry

Are the things we’ll always know.

Then the water kept on movin’,

And the river seemed to say,

“Son, the blood may start the story,

But it don’t decide the way.”

We’re talkin’ family and pain,

But it don’t have to remain.

The past can build a prison,

Or become a gravestone laid,

And what was handed down in darkness

Can be buried in the clay.

So we’re talkin’ family and pain,

And the hurt through the vein,

But somewhere beyond the thunder,

The river learns a different name.