Pain Of Salvation

We’ve seen it before but safe on our suburb screens
Now I am here in the flesh
A witness of war in this godforsaken scene
Far from those grey walls
See children with guns hatred and fear in their eyes
They shoot to release their pain
A conflict to solve no matter if someone dies
Protecting our interests…
Look around, soon there’ll be but ruins to be found
Winner will be the last that stands
Lethal moves in a game of chess for the depraved
King or Pawn? Are you worth to save?
(What is the prize for this game we play?)
(And who are the ones that finally pay?)

If we eat more we’ll get a handful of nothing
We’ll be swallowing dirt
If we push more we’ll get a fistful of enough
We’ll be swallowing blood

They told me that we could actually save human lives
That armies would preserve the peace
And my work would save, solve and build bonds
Only lies!
And I fed their wallets...

It’s strange how we speak of civilised views
While we buy that media warface they sell
A makeup for "Them" so we can decide who’s to die
Cause we love it easy…

Here they are - take a good look at the beasts of war!
Let the rain wash that paint away…
Deep inside everyone’s a mothers little child
Longing home, lost and led astray
And we prey on this decay!

If we eat more we’ll get a handful of nothing
We’ll be left with the dirt
If we push more we’ll get a fistful of enough
I leave this machine...

I left my life to ease my pain
But I cannot find that cleansing rain...
Look around soon there’ll be but ruins to be found
We can change - it’s all in our minds...

D. Gildenlow

Step by step hate controls every heart every soul
Every gun pointed at those we paint as Enemies
We provide what they need to let the game proceed
Stuck in machines somewhere
we build the cross they bear
Arm to solve, kill to save… God I’ve felt how it smells!
"My land’s my home" - we’re blind!
I’m sick of the blood I find!
Step by step greed controls every heart every soul
Arm to kill, kill to live - God how could I believe...

[southamerican bonus track]

[Music and Lyrics by D.Gildenlow]

Through a dusty window I watch the clouds draw near
A lovely vision of my doom
The sunlight's fading - reflections start to dim
Through the dusty window in this room

I'm walking through my memories as I'm staring through the glass
I have to claim I'm innocent
Though I can't remember what I've done these past few nights
I can't be the one that Father Kane believes I am

I see myself now, in the dusty glass
All wired up in this chair
My face is foreign and my weary eyes are black
I see myself through that stare

Eternal alleys that lead to walls hidden behind unlocked doors
I claim the handle, I need to see
Even though I'll surely be afraid of what I may find...

...beyond the mirror!
(Inside the circle)

I walk through mazes of cold corridors
Searching for the core of my mind
My heartbeats reach out to find another pulse
That once was bound and confined

The two different heartbeats, becoming one
Are causing the coalescence of my soul
A quiet outcry - a silent scream - is filling me as I am driven back
From shadows that dwell...

...beyond the mirror!
(Inside the circle)

[Hallgren/D.Gildenlow/Both/Hallgren/D.Gildenlow/Both]

My world is frozen as I'm staring through the glass
Gazing through the window at my memories
Not longer foreign
Though I somehow wish...they were

The glowing fingers of a violent raging sky
In search for evil find a path
They rush through my veins, they invite my pulse to die
They end my life with frenzied wrath

Amidst the shadows of whisper land
I feel that something's binding me to life
Confined in nowhere by no ones hand
I realize the pact is unfulfilled
I'm trapped on the edge...

...beyond the mirror!
(Inside the circle)

So finally my journey ends
And through this wound my soul can mend
Guilt is my blood
I'm being drained
This is my home, I will stay

Inside
There's always someone inside
Fighting to get outside
The "knowing-right-from-wrong side"
Our home is inside

I've traveled the world around
In search for some Grail of mine
How could I be so blind?
It was always here inside
I have only some weeks to give
But at last I live

Life's just a line of situations
A matter of occasions
And mystic correlations
The work of a machine

Here in a world split to nations
We fail to see the relations
Between the wheel and the Machine
And of the scars we're leaving

Inside
I swear there's someone inside
Fighting to get outside
Just give it all an hour
By the Concrete Lake

Don't disturb me now
I can see the why, the when and how
Looking back to see all bridges burn
I have reached the point of no return
This is zero
(Shore Serenity)

This is all that is left of me
A broken man at a broken sea

To be or not to be a wheel in the big machinery
That is not the matter of the game
Just as long as you can sense the frame
Of the big picture
(Wheels make the machine)

This is all that is left of me
A broken man at a concrete sea
But now I know that one cell can kill
And a big machine stands and falls with a wheel

The higher I am reaching - the closer to the sun
The more I learn the less I know for sure
For each machine I’m leaving I find a bigger one
For each step I turn wiser than before
But it’s burning me...
Pilgrim, where are you going?
Pilgrim, your roads turning bleak
Pilgrim, true to your knowing
But what will you pay for the Grail that you seek?
...

Though these roads seem endless
And life seems out of reach
The roads I left were better off unwalked
If I had just been stronger
If I had dared to see
Maybe I would not have had to go this far
But still I won’t give in...

Pilgrim, where are you going?
Pilgrim, your roads turning bleak
Pilgrim, This quest is your calling
...the curtains are falling...
Pilgrim, where are you going?
And who sets the price on the answers you seek?

This was our home
We had our truth
Bled for our creed
Why must we still bleed?
Your tailings are bound
Forever in this ground

So you come for our holy ground
When your nature's gone and your house has burnt down
No!

For hundreds of years
You've hurt this land
Eating what's there
Leaving a wasteland
But there is no space
To hold all your mistakes

Still you come for our holy ground
When your nature's gone and your houses are all burnt down

This is our home
Our roots go deep
Where our ancestors sleep
This is the land we've nursed for countless aeons
But never ours to keep

My tribe is crying
Our land is dying
But we can't leave
This is our home
We can't let our past go

We're left with your legacy
Wide awake, deep at our roots
While you move on exploiting
We'll sing lullabies for half a million years

When my son asks why, what will I reply?
But we can't leave
This is our home
We can't let our past go

But we can't leave
This is our home
If you like concrete alone
Then don't make your high lives depend
On that past that you let go

I've always loved the sound of rain
Touching so softly my windowpane
And then the scent of dew at dawn
Coming to greet me from my moist lawn
Home

I always took it for granted
I never valued the drops I shed
I failed to see the relation
Between my self and world starvation

Water's for the chosen
But how come we expect us to be those few
Me and you?

(In this hot, desolate timeglass I met this man, wearing a worn old flyer's cap
Every day he had to dig 10 feet down for his daily ration of water ? one poor gallon
And so he did, singing while doing it)

10 feet of sand for the thirst
But he gave me half of what he was given for a day
All for thirst and sanity use
While we use up hundred times more
What do we do with it?
Pipes and bathtubs, sprinklers and fountains
Freshwater used as a dump for oil and nuclear waste
“Desert people turns humble” he said
They know what they have
But do they know what they lose when we flush?

(But yet, sadly, he looked up to me. Felt a need for our greed, our "freedom".
Said all he really wanted was a car and a radio. He too failed to see the relation
Between our lives and his starvation)

Water's for the chosen
Water's for the few
Water's for the chosen
Water's for the few
Life is for the chosen
But only if we believe it to be true
But we do!
But I'm through
I'm through
I'm through

I've always loved the sound of rain

Welcome inside the machine
It hurts
Go numb, go blind

One's drilling out a pipe
One adjusts the aim
One makes trigger parts
Weapons as a game

All trapped in killing routine
Washed clean
By this machine

On these grey walls
Lovely pictures of the weapons we produce
But not their actions

All are part of the big machine
We do our job
"Guilty!"

But what if we save?
And what if we solve?
And what if we build?
And what

What if we lose control?
What if we lose control?
What if we lose control?
What if we lose control?

I am just a wheel

And what if we stop?

I was told the pain and hunger was not my fault
How could they be so wrong?
And man, of all five billion people you're only one
Believed them for far too long

Clean hands
My land is my home

I'm inside the big machine and it's eating me
And I am just a wheel in motion, too blind to see
The way we are heading now

I'm hollow
I swallow, but

Inside I'm strong
Inside I'm free
Inside I'm young
Inside I'm still me

(Since 1990 there have been 93 wars in 70 states all around the world
with 5.5 million people dead
75% of those people were civilians
1 million of them were children)

Guns don't kill
I don't kill
Do I?

Drink with me, laugh with me, friends for tonight
Stay with me, sleep with me, happy tonight
I only feel lonely outside this bar
Look at me when I speak
Who do you think you are?

Just look at me now
Inside I'm lost

Now I'm vain, numb this pain
Why is it burning?
Clean as rain, not a stain
So why am I yearning?

I can't sleep
I twist and turn
In too deep
I sweat, I burn
I'm afraid that I'll awake
Dressed up in a big mistake
Then I'd break

What if I just closed my eyes? (I'm not clean)
What if I shut out the lies? (Blood unseen)
And what if I could hear my heart (All over my hands)
Accusing me for taking part
Of the Machine

walk with me
and see the world I see
it is our home
it's where we all belong

life is flair
a brittle dress we wear
a fleeting sigh
but though pointless it may seem:
live as death were but a dream

you don't have to walk their way
you don't have to watch the show
you don't have to play their game
and you don't have to die to leave entropia

all remains:
forgotten smiles in frames
two fleeting lives cut down to pocket-size

walk with me
and change the world we see
we'll cease to be
just people passing by
home is where we all get by

you don't have to cry for more
you don't have to have it all
you don't have to win a war
if death is but a dream
then don't let me...

...fall asleep

Plains Of Dawn
by Pain Of Salvation



[music & lyrics by: daniel gildenlow]

"I'm here now, by your side" Sheltered from the cold, a soldier guards a boy.
Clocks are cutting as times pass by their pain
(bringing release through the book on his knees)
(keep trying, keep trying, keep dying inside)

"Hush now little child, it's time to say goodnight.
Find rest in my lullaby this night
I'll still be here when the nightmists draw near"
(blind figures controlling his life)
(keep falling, keep falling, keep falling down now)

"Have faith my son - reach for my hand and I'll walk with you till the sun
goes down. Follow me now, we will meet again in your land.
(have faith my son) Now I'll lead you home."

Opening stillness, reaching through illness. They walk in nightmist.
"Now, we meet again. I'm so close to you now. Again we laugh."

Where shallow waters reach for unknown mystic shores
they gaze at the horizon and smile

[daniel gildenlow]

"Behold my son - reach for the vision that fills your mind, just let go and
run. Follow the path that was meant for you long ago. (behold my son) And
cross the plains of dawn."

Wordless questions, tearful confessions.
They meet at last now, when it is time to go separate ways
(fading pages) They have touched through ages.

"Remember me my son, it's time to say...goodbye.
I'll free you from your prison - now go!
You're free now, the wave meets the shore!"
(keep running, keep running, keep running home kid)
(winning a war made him lose evermore)

"Farewell my son - the tubes that were straining you to a death within life
are gone. Wait for us, I and your mother will cherish you my son. I cry as
I'm watching you run across plains of dawn."

...and so through that evening a soldier is leaving his son once again
and a war has been lost...
Forlorn he is reeling, unmendably kneeling.
But fate leaves no choice: now he must close the book!

Cold winter winds blow away autumn leaves now.
Misty world fades away before my blinded eyes -
WHY?
Now when I stand at the end of the line,
I cling to life when I should decline.
I always thought I would welcome this day,
but now when it's here -
could there be a heaven behind that gate?
Love or hate?

WAIT! ...by my side.
Count the seconds till I die.
Hold my hand.
Smile and tell me that you care,
'cause I'm scared now.
Now when I stand at the end of the line,
I cling to life when I should decline.
I always thought I would welcome this day,
but now I can see:
...it is yet a bird of pray!

God, hear my voice!
I turn to thee -
you've got to tell me: what will become of me?

(daniel magdic)
(daniel gildenlow)

WHY SHALL I DIE?
OH GOD! Hear my voice!
Tell me there are no questions.
Please give me a few more hours of this flair life...
IT'S MINE!
As I am leaving, alone and afraid,
I'm thinking of all the mistakes I've made.
I wish of my heart I could change only one!
I'd want to say 'sorry'
just one more time before I am GONE! (gone)

Now he's counting time in beggings and bottles
Fading away beneath old news
So he's lost some faith, but still there are fires
Deep inside that he must drench to numb
Deep inside that he must drench to numb

Never Learn To Fly
by Pain Of Salvation



[Japanese bonustrack]
[music & lyrics: daniel gildenlow]

When I was a little child, I once found a bird lying on the ground.
It would not ever fly again.
I held the bird up in my hands, I shed my tears over the lovely song that
not longer could be heard.

Never learn to fly.

With dirty hands I dug a hole and gently laid the bird to rest in soil:

a wound in the tear stained mud.
My tears wore rain as I revealed the secrets of a tree.
A cross of bark to speak through wooden grains:

"never learn to fly"

I sang a song which I remembered my grandma used to sing
for me, when I was sick and laid in bed.
Then I cursed that day for showing me my own mortality
for then I knew that all that lives turns cold. Cold and dead.
And now time has passed by beneath my wings.

[kristoffer gildenlow]

That was then I'm older now, but still I can't forget that rainy day.
I raged against the ending times, though some day soon my son will maybe
find the tree I cleansed of skin.
No chain-sling will ever climb its rotten limbs.
And when the time has come for me to die, I want to lie beside that bird.

Never learn to fly.

When I was a little child, I once found myself dying on the ground
and now I'll never ...fly...

(Sorrow turned into hate
Anger became a thread to climb with faith
Tasting the life she shed)

"Time will heal" they told him
Just as if they knew his pain
"Time kills" he whispered
Not a word
They watched him leave again

Grief need not her grave
Nothing left to save

She went up with the sunrise that day
Planned her future as every day
Spent her last minutes in tomorrows
She would never experience

Live your life each day
Meet the tides my friend
We're all nomads forever on our way
A journey to the end

(She walked there every day
Without even knowing
It was the place to which she was going)

If you knew the number
Of the steps you would ever take
Bitter I wonder
Would you run or cease to walk?
For her sake he lived
Nothing more to give

Looking back now, he could have saved her
But there's no one left to save him
'Cause we're all walking in tomorrows
We may never experience

Live your life each day
Meet the tides my friend
We're all nomads forever on our way
A journey to the end
To the end!

So now he has knowledge but what has he won?
All pages are empty, he's already gone
He lost what he lived for and losses won't mend
Alive just to enter a journey beyond the end

In The Flesh


She walks these empty streets alone
Looking for something they call "home"
Hoping to find some peace of mind
Sometimes we need to walk alone

She is set on running away
Though her mom was yelling she must stay
A wind beaten bird for reasons unheard
Sometimes it is best to run away

So fly away, fly away, fly away
Don't be afraid, don't hesitate, fly away

Some wear their bruises on their skin
Others hide their scars deep within
She has a wound close to her womb
Blames herself for letting it in

So fly away, fly away, fly away
Don't be afraid, don't hesitate, fly away
But She's afraid, she's afraid, she's afraid
Anyway..
See those eyes, see those eyes, see those eyes
Hate and lies, a fire that slowly dies
But She will fly, she will fly, she will fly
Before it dies

Sometimes the hands that feed
Must feed a mind with a sick need
And the hands that clutch can be
The same hands that touch too much
Eyes that hungrily stare
Read in an access that's not there
While eyes close to hide tears
Or look away in fear
Run away!

Passing the open stores
Hiding her dirty sores
Seeking asylum among freaks and whores
What wouldn't she give to be in a society
Not learning the eyes to be closed but to see

Now she bites the words
"Never"
She kicks the ground
"Never"
Swallows her tears
"Never will I go back"
She hits the walls
"Leave me!"
Scratches herself
"Leave me!"
Begs to all Gods
"Rip me from this sick flesh!"

"I will always be there"
"No!"
She holds her ears
"You know that I love you"
Pretends that she doesn't hear
"We're in this together"
"We share the same skin"
Panic in his voice now
"Free us from sin"

"Tell me that you love me"
This is the end
"I know that you do"
Of her way
Never ever again
Follow me down

"God forgive this hunger"
"Please mommy see"
"Never tell a soul"
"Is it me?"
A child will love its parents
Will follow them down

She swears to the pavement's heart of stone
That these city lights will be her home
But still as they burn she will return
Back to the adults. . . of her home.