Hold your Fire lyrics

Tough times demand tough talk
Demand tough hearts demand tough songs
Demand...

We can rise and fall like empires
Flow in and out like the tide
Be vain and smart, humble and dumb
We can hit and miss like pride
Just like pride

We can circle around like hurricanes
Dance and dream like lovers
Attack the day like birds of prey
Or scavengers under cover

Chorus

Look in -- to the eye of the storm

I turn my back to the wind
To catch my breath
Before I start off again.
Driven on without a moment to spend
To pass an evening with a drink and a friend

I let my skin get too thin
I'd like to pause
No matter what I pretend
Like some pilgrim
Who learns to transcend
Learns to live as if each step was the end

(Time stand still)
I'm not looking back
But I want to look around me now

It went right by me,
At the time it went over my head
I was looking out the window
I should have looked at your face instead

It went right by me
Just another wall
There should have been a moment
When we let our barriers fall
I never meant what you're thinking...
That's not what I meant at all.

Well I guess we all have these feelings
We can't leave unreconciled

A memo to a higher office
Open letter to the powers that be
To a god, a king, a head of state
A captain of industry
To the movers and the shakers...
Can't everybody see?

It ought to be second nature
I mean, the places where we live
Let's talk about this sensibly
We're not insensitive
I know progress has no patience
But something's got to give

I know you're different
You know I'm the same

Basic elemental instinct to survive
Stirs the higher passions
Thrill to be alive

Alternating currents in a tidewater surge
Rational resistance to an unwise urge

Anything can happen...

From the point of conception
To the moment of truth
At the point of surrender
To the burden of proof

From the point of ignition
To the final drive
The point of the journey is not to arrive

I don't want to face the killer instinct
Face it in you or me

We carry a sensitive cargo
Below the waterline
Ticking like a time bomb
With a primitive design
Behind the finer feelings
This civilized veneer
The heart of a lonely hunter
Guards a dangerous frontier

The balance can sometimes fail
Strong emotions can tip the scale

Don't want to silence a desperate voice
For the sake of security

Hold your fire,
Keep it burning bright
Hold the flame 'til the dream ignites
A spirit with a vision is a dream
With a mission

I hear their passionate music
Read the words that touch my heart
I gaze at their feverish pictures
The secrets that set them apart

When I feel the powerful visions
Their fire has made alive
I wish I had that instinct
I wish I had that drive

Nothing can survive in a vacuum
No one can exists all alone
We pretend things only happen to strangers
We've all got problems of our own
It's enough to learn to share our pleasures
We can't soothe pain with sympathy
All that we can do is be reminded
We shake our heads at the tragedy

Every day we're standing in a time capsule
Racing down a river from the past

High on the sacred mountain
Up the seven thousand stairs
In the golden light of autumn
There was magic in the air

The clouds surrounded the summit
The wind blew strong and cold
Among the silent temples
And the writing carved in gold

Somewhere in my instincts
The primitive took hold.

I stood at the top of the mountain
And China sang to me
In the peaceful haze of harvest time
A song of eternity

When the waters rose in the darkness
In the wake of the endless flood
It flowed into our memory
It flowed into our blood

When something broke the surface
Just to see the starry dome
We still feel that relation
When the water takes us home
In the flying spray of the ocean
The water takes you home

Springing from the weight of the mountains
Like the heart of the earth would burst