lifeblood: songs: tear it down

you say i miss the old ways
but not like that
dog whistling fool of a king
don't you know that old dixieland
is more than dirt roads and simple ways
tear it down
tear it down that
ragged cross of race

i don't guess that we deserve all this
the beauty and the light
the way the firefly returns in june
as dusk sings her lullaby
all the lives that fertilized
and the manifested hand
the human bondage that provides
the bounty of this land
tear it down ah
tear it down that
ragged cross of race
the stone and the ore
beaten into monuments that
rose out of hate

i was that lonely kid in old cinemas
watching gone with the wind
tradition runs the core of me
the song of the south
whistling dixie again
oh that tune lived and breathed in me
and it wants to live again
we must fight with all our might
to kill that racist hymn
and tear it down ah
tear it down that
ragged cross of race
the stone and the ore
beaten into monuments that
rose out of hate
the epitaph i long to read is
here lies slavery

words and music amy ray