This came about riding the trains around India, which is really the only way to see a country like that. From American experience, we know that highways bring civilization along in tow with them - little towns spring up just because there was a road there first. But the trains cut through back, back country - and in a developing country, that means wooden shanties, no power lines, no roads, clay being dug out of the earth and fashioned into brick by hand, wilderness.
Maybe on the next album will come a little traveling song that came about around the same time. This'll do for now.
lyrics
So there was a giant king, 40 stories high and short where he came from, ruling over everything from when men were just hairless dumb monkeys the size of his thumb, but he was raised good and true, watched his daddy shaping all the earth, digging rivers deep into the bitter valleys with his knuckle down, until one day a man looked up, and his jaw dropped somewhere around his knees, and the giant king had a strange thought as he watched them gather the cavalry up. Then there were bullets in the trees, and the boys calling for war as the giantesses gnashed their teeth, the king said "I should nevermore live to see a day like this one. We could make it war, we could grind their bones to make our bread. We could tear their castles back to stone, bust the holy sky over our heads. But I don't want to wake up as the king when there's nothing good left in this land. I watched my daddy raise the mountains and I understand." So they left to the hills, followed by pistols and torches there. It was the end of an age, I fear. It was the end of the age of giants.
Long story short, when they came, set fire to the hill and burned a path up to the door, it's bad news I'm afraid, they're stretching over the plain, and all your people are readying their babies for war. "But I can't even relate," said the king to his men, "I don't understand why they need the world to be flat. All these people down there looking scared with the sky filled with smoke and the guns in their hands. We could make it war, we could grind their bones to make our bread. We could tear their castles back to stone, bust the holy sky over our heads. But I don't want to wake up as the king when there's nothing good left in this land. I watched my daddy raise the mountains and I understand." So they left to the hills, followed by pistols and torches there. It was the end of an age, I fear. It was the end of the age of giants.
They'll say, time was, we might have walked the earth with something much bigger than us.
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