"A Prayer For The Sane" by Danny Schmidt - Set 1 / Song 3 from Artichoke Music

These songs are from a live solo Danny Schmidt concert at Artichoke Music in Portland, OR in mid-2023. See the full setlist below. Enjoy!

Set One:
1. Words Are Hooks
2. 2020 Vision
3. A Prayer For The Sane
4. Bank Robber's Lament
5. Midsummer Hail Storm
6. Last Man Standing
7. Firestorm
8. Standard Deviation
9. Stained Glass

Set Two:
1. Paper Cranes
2. Just Wait Til They See You
3. The Thing About Motherfuckers
4. Swing Me Down
5. This Too Shall Pass
6. Company Of Friends
7. Faith Will Always Rise
8. Cleopatra

Thank you to Artichoke Music for simulcasting the concert online and for making the videos available. Artichoke one of the great intimate singer/songwriter venues in the country.

For more info about Danny's music, please visit:
https://www.dannyschmidt.com

For more info about Artichoke Music, please visit:
https://www.artichokemusic.org

LYRICS:

Tear the world in half
The haves from have-not halves
They built a fire between us
And hoped like hell to raise the Phoenix

Tear the world in two
The truths from the half-the-truths
The lies and the bad disguises
From the facts and Nobel prizes

These were once good lands
Of good neighbors and good friends
We used to fight like dancers
One call with different answers

These were open lands
And strangers were our future friends
But fences make for consequences
We’re prisoners of our own defenses

Now our heart’s been broken
We lost our way but found it stolen
Hidden in a storm of nothing
A hurricane of newsmen blushing

Now our eyes are bleeding
Tears of the loss of reason
A pool of our own objections
Honest men with no reflections

Here’s the choice my sister
Gentle warrior, fierce resistor
Fill the sky like blackbirds
Or sit and watch the world spin backwards

Here’s the choice my brother
Old soldier, different drummer
March hard to break the borders
Or stand guard the old world orders

Here’s the choice my child
Raise your hands and reconcile
While the king kneels down before us
It’s time for you to rise in chorus

It’s time to set our anger free
It’s time for facts to shade beliefs
It’s time to name the new north star
It’s time for flames to skewer the dark
It’s time to shake the voting booth
It’s time for us to scream the truth

Now’s it’s time my friends
It’s time to make us whole again
Just as the world revolves
Let’s get these broken days resolved