I wrote this after witnessing a teenager get shot outside my jobsite in Baltimore. He survived but I couldn’t shake thinking about the startling ways in which ones life can end so suddenly and pointlessly. And the sound of a bullet is so particularly haunting. But this song is also about the angry, violent culture that men are raised in, and the hope I saw in the tears of this young woman.
Blue summer sky, muggy summer heat
And an old mason’s laughing laying blocks of concrete
It’s that out in the open charm of a Baltimore street
And a bullet flies by
Seen the kid shot, heard him was crying out
Trying to find somebody who could make the pain stop
His sister was crying on the steps, fearing what would happen next
More of the same…
She’s searching for a new world in the shadow of the old
Trying to shake off the past but it’s just such a heavy load
Looking for direction but there’s so many dead-end roads
It’s so far, so far
So far away from here
You got the scapegoat, got the blame, got the anger, got the shame
Got a hundred different forces working against you in your name
With so few to trust in this world of guns or handcuffs
It’s more of the same
She’s searching for a new world in the shadow of the old
Trying to shake off the past but it’s just such a heavy load
Looking for direction but there’s so many dead-end roads
It’s so far, so far
So far away from here
Still she finds time to smile, selling snowballs on the porch
Singing songs as she walks to the grocery store
Too young to hold such pain, but she’s old enough to try
Oh here’s the future brother, it’s in your sister’s open mind
She’s searching for a new world in the shadow of the old
Trying to shake off the past but it’s just such a heavy load
Looking for direction but there’s so many dead-end roads
It’s so far, so far
So far away from here
