Came across this old James Taylor tune on a Hurricane Katrina benefit CD ("Higher Ground: Hurricane Relief Benefit Concert"). There's some great, soulful, sad sound on this one. And set in that collection, JT's tune becomes a meditation of a sort, and brings a lump to the throat. "We got to close our eyes / Cut up our losses into doable doses / Ration our tears and sighs."
We were ring-around-the-rosy children
They were circles around the sun
Never give up, never slow down
Never grow old, never ever die young
Synchronized with the rising moon
Even with the evening star
They were true love written in stone
They were never alone, they were never that far apart
And we who couldn't bear to believe they might make it
We got to close our eyes
Cut up our losses into doable doses
Ration our tears and sighs
You could see them on the street on a saturday night
Everyone used to run them down
They're a little too sweet, they're a little too tight
Not enough tough for this town
We couldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole
No, it didn't seem to rattle at all
They were glued together body and soul
That much more with their backs up against the wall
Oh, hold them up, hold them up
Never do let them fall
Prey to the dust and the rust and the ruin
That names us and claims us and shames us all
I guess it had to happen someday soon
Wasn't nothing to hold them down
They would rise from among us like a big balloon
Take the sky, forsake the ground
Oh, yes, other hearts were broken
Yeah, other dreams ran dry
But our golden ones sail on, sail on
To another land beneath another sky
