Lyrics: Gold

Gold would be worthless if it didn’t require
such heartbreak to seek it, to find it and mine it
Things remain precious as long as they’re rare
If gold could be found lying ‘round everywhere
it would be the lowliest of metals, too soft for serious use
Pretty, of course and warm to the touch
but no longer alluring when you’ve handled so much
The lowliest of metals

Will you come with me through the ice and the snow?
She thought for a minute, then she said: let’s go
I rode behind her as she rode ahead
and all through that winter I’d lose her and find her
Our rations ran out, our horses were dead
she forgot what gold was and I had to remind her:
it’s the lowliest of metals, too soft for serious use
pretty, of course, warm to the touch
but no longer alluring when you’ve handled so much
The lowliest of metals

In a prospector’s shack she lay out of her mind
describing how simple gold is to find
Just under the surface in zigzagging veins
it lies there in branches of midsummer lightning
You just open a hole in the crust of the plains
she said: you reach in and it’s there for the taking
Gold

Snow-blind and starving I sat by her side
as the fever raged in her and the storm raged outside
She said: now we are rich, I told her the truth:
all the gold we had found could not crown a tooth
She said: these things I know without being told
we are rich in each other, so what good is gold?
It’s the lowliest of metals

Sometimes I dream that the world is reversed
I dream that accountants are rarer than poets
That things will get better, that they can’t get any worse
and that a rich man has nothing but dirt in his purse
And gold is the lowliest of metals, too soft for serious use
pretty, of course and warm to the touch
but no longer alluring when you’ve handled so much
It’s the lowliest of metals, the lowliest of metals
the lowliest of metals