I Am The One Who Will Remember Everything

               Em                G        C
Oh what have we here, he must be three or four,
               Em          G           C
Shaken out of a boot on its way back to war
                    G     Bm          Em
And he’s not looking for a father or a mother,
      C              G
Just a seven year old brother,
       Am                  D
On this smudged line border camp of refugees,

     Em       G              C
     I am the one who will remember everything
     Em       G              C
     I am the one who will remember everything

               Em           G          C
So where are we now, he must be five or six,
            Em             G               C
Just running around, hungry kids, sharpened sticks.
           G         Bm                Em
And he will grow with pain and fear and jealousy,
           C          G
Taken in by schools of zealotry,
         Am              D
Who train orphans to make orphans evermore.

     Em       G              C
     I am the one who will remember everything
     Em       G              C
     I am the one who will remember everything
     Em       G              C
     I am the one who will remember everything
     Em       G              C
     I am the one who will remember everything

Bridge:
             Em                  G
You drink the smoke, you ride the noise
             C
You drink the smoke, you ride the noise,
       Em             G
And you say it’s necessary,
           C
And you forget the ordinary

          Em     G             C
But I say, on the wheel of time,

Scour the Earth and find the
Em        G                   C
Orphans of forgetting, all the orphans of forgetting,
         Em                 G
Give them stars for math and praise for good play,
C                Am
Here’s a Band-Aid, happy birthday,
D
Yes of course I did remember,
                     Em
I remember everything

            Em              G             C
Oh come over here, kid we’ve got all these books to read,
                    Em              G                 C
With the turtles and frogs, cats and dogs who civilize the centuries,
        G            Bm               Em
And in a world that’s angry, cruel and furious,
            C                 G
There’s this monkey who’s just curious,
        Am           D
Floating high above a park with bright balloons.

I am the one who will remember everything.

     Em       G              C
     I am the one who will remember everything
     Em       G              C
     I am the one who will remember everything
     Em       G              C
     I am the one who will remember everything
     Em       G              C
     I am the one who will remember everything
Em
Everything…