Waltz Of The 101St Lightborne

  Am                Bb            Gm   Bb
I believed they had got what they came for;
    F          Bb        Dm
I believed our peril was done
       Am         Bb          Gm    Bb
On the eve of the last of the Great Wars
      F            Bb       Dm
After three we had narrowly won
         F             Bb         F
(But the fourth It was carelessly done.)


  F   Am  Dm          Gm           C D#
I saw his ship in its whistling ascension
        G#                F       G7
As they launched from the Capitol seat–
        Bb         E
Swear I saw our mistake
         A      Dm            Bb
When the clouds draped like a flag
           D#           F
Across the backs of the fleet
       Bb            D#         F
Of the Hundred-First Lightborne Elite


       Am     Bb
As the day is long
       Dm        F
So the well runs dry
       D#                  Bb
And we came to see Time is taller
     F        C
Than Space is wide
       Am      Bb
And we bade goodbye
       Dm    F
To the Great Divide:
        D#           Bb         F   C
Found unlimited simulacreage to colonize!


                Am           Bb            Gm  Bb
But there was a time we were lashed to the prow
     F            Bb             Dm
Of a ship you may board, but not steer
       Am        Bb        Gm   Bb
Before you and I ceased to mean now
      F           Bb         Dm
And began to mean only right Here
        F          Bb             F
To mean Inches and Miles, but not Years


F Am   Dm          Gm           C D#
Before Space has a taste of its limits
      G#            F          G7
And a new sort of coordinate awoke
        Bb         E           A Dm
Leaving Time just another poor tenant:
       Bb             D#             F
Bearing weight, taking fire, trading smokes
       Bb          D#         F
In the war between us and our ghosts


              Am     Bb            Dm      F
But I saw the Bering Strait and the Golden Gate
   D#        Bb               F      C
In silent suspension of their golden age!
            Am     Bb         Dm       F
And you can barely tell, if I guard it well
      D#      Bb                F       C
Where I have been, and seen Pristine, unfelled.


        Am           Bb            Gm Bb
I had a dream that I walked in the garden
      F              Bb        Dm
Of Chabot, and those telescope ruins
       Am           Bb           Gm   Bb
It was there that I called to my true love
        F          Bb      Dm
Who was pale as millennial moons
       F             Bb           F
Honey, where did you come by that wound?


F   Am Dm           Gm
When I woke, he was gone
        C       D#
And the War had begun
   G#        F          G7
In eternal return and repeat
         Bb           E            A        Dm
Calling, Where in the hell are the rest of your fellow
    Bb          D#         F
One Hundred-One Lightborne Elite?
               Bb           D#         F
Stormed in the New Highland Light Infantry


        Am       Bb
Make it stop, my love!
        Dm       F
We were wrong to try
      D#                Bb
Never saw what we could unravel
   F         C
In traveling light
            Am   Bb
Nor how the trip debrides–
       Dm       F
Like a stack of slides!
       D#                   Bb          F        C
All we saw was that Time is taller than Space is wide


                  Am         Bb          Gm Bb
That's why we are bound to a round desert island
           F             Bb           Dm
'neath the sky where our sailors have gone
          Am                Bb    Gm  Bb
Have they drowned, in those windy highlands?
F          Bb      F
Highlands away, my John



Am, Bb, Dm, F, D#, Bb, F, C (x2)



Am, Bb, Gm, Bb

F          Bb      Dm
Highlands away, my John



Am, Bb, Gm, Bb, D#, Bb, F

D#        Bb       F
Highlands away, my John