Medicine Hat (Album Version)

Medicine Hat - Son Volt

There will be droughts and days inundated

Unveilings free from saturation

Departures raised with no masquerading

There will be teachers that die by their own hand

Pundits that push headlong for atonement

Friends and followers devoted to living

There will be watchers that plot from in confines

And those committed to society's circles

Unwary cogs with no cadence or virtue

There will be right there will be wrong

Drop of the hat and it's already started

Just like that and the deed is done

What I'd give for the hat to be medicine

The time is now to be on the run

There will be machinations unforeseen

Sleepwalking sense from a bad dream

No promenade walk in the parkway

There will be catchwords filled with infection

Circulars to prop up occasion

No golden mean to guide the footsteps

There will be levels on high hills that appraise

There will be unchanging certainties

Barometers that follow the stampede

There will be right

There will be wrong

Drop of the hat and it's already started

Just like that and the deed is done

What I'd give for that hat to be medicine

The time is now to be on the run

There will be signposts of indication

Semaphore go signs and warnings

Hailstone halos and country-blues wailings

There will be strains that break out of straight time

To pave with grace different roads to the same place

No consequence to repay what's been given

There will be layers of means to an end

Drawn-out days before resolution

Dregs will rain down from all directions

There will be right

There will be wrong

Drop of the hat and it's already started

Just like that and the deed is done

What I'd give for that hat to be medicine

The time is now to be on the run