From the recording Counting My Rings: B-sides (2014)
History-themed songs elicit very little interest among the general populace. You either love history or you hate it—or so I’ve heard. A Bachelor of Arts firmly in hand, I very much believe it is possible to learn from the lessons of the past. For as long as I live I will continue to bore people with the merits of history married to song.
Written between 2000-2002, this was recorded for the Miracle of Forgetting sessions, but since it did not fit with the overall production or subject matter of MoF, I wound up cutting it. When it came time to make the followup album (Scarce, 2006), I presented it to the producer, who took no interest in it whatsoever. So I shelved the song yet again. I kept hope alive that “Sword” would one day find a home somewhere, and this EP seemed as good a place as any. Outcasts, after all, must stick together.
Lyrics
Cold, hard steel on a weary battlefield
Makes for stuff of legend and of myth
Forged from the ore which never should have bore
The brunt of such a war to begin with
Bedded down for the eve, I easily drift off to sleep
Without a care, without a second thought
I am the brazen bearer of a great and holy terror
A venom and deliverer of sorts
I am the Union, I am Secesh
I am the musket in the field at Wilderness
I am the foe, I am the friend
I am the bloodied saber at the battle’s end
I am the rifle, and I am the sword
I helped to turn the tide while still on the rebel’s side
The master in the slave’s lowly hand
Once you realize that all the promises were lies
You never want to be used again
Once you realize that all your truths were only lies
You never want to be held again
I am the Union, I am Secesh
I am the musket in the field at Wilderness
I am the foe, I am the friend
I am the bloodied saber at the battle’s end
I am the peace, I am the war
I am the murderer of brothers from both near and far
I am Grant, I am Lee
I am the wedge dividing men and their beloved country