Family Tree

by @lyricslinger

Liner Notes

#lyrics_only #needs_collab #needs_music #needs_vocals #history
This is a lyric that I started in October 2022 but I'd got stuck as to how to progress it. Went back to it this week and have got it to at least a draft stage. It was prompted by reading a story about a woman who had traced her family's past and had found that a lot had lived and died as slaves. She discovered that there were graveyards in quite hidden places where some of her ancestors were buried

Lyrics

Family Tree

(Verse 1)
I don't know what started me on this journey
Its inception now seems lost in time
But I began to retrace my footsteps
And didn't know what I would find

(Verse 2)
I searched the records of census and burials
Slowly excavated the clues
And as my history rose up and hit me
I stared at the expanding bruise

(Chorus)
So many fallen branches
On my family tree
They cut down all those branches
From my family tree
Leaves fell from those hacked branches
Til all that was left was me
All that is left is me

(Verse 3)
I found the graves of those who were ‘lucky’
Plainly marked and off the beaten trail
Sons and daughters all but forgotten
Their stories entombed under the shale

(Verse 4)
I’ve pieced together fragments of those stories
Stitched together threadbare patchwork squares
I know that I am builded from their glories
And that the paths we’ve walked along are shared

(Chorus)
So many fallen branches
On my family tree
They cut down all those branches
From my family tree
Leaves fell from those hacked branches
Til all that was left was me
All that is left is me

(Bridge)
It’s tempting to say all of this is over
That we no longer act that way
But the news reminds me with a harsh jolt
That things are no so different today

(Chorus)
So many fallen branches
On my family tree
They cut down all those branches
From my family tree
Leaves fell from those hacked branches
Til all that was left was me
All that is left is me

Written by Simon Wright
(February 2023)

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