Essential

The red hot sun burns up the hill
The winter's bride, the summer's king
I tramp these acres and I feel
Once upon a time
Then it seemed that everything
You saw and touched and felt was real
You turned the tap and you turned the wheel
Breathing free
Now you search the open evening sky
Trace the memory in your eyes
For the prophet's hard rain and the deluge
Lie in tears around your door
Once there were trees and livestock here
A mother's love, the warnings clear
But you chose to turn away from fear
Breathing free
Now there's a faceless cross on a distant hill
A wasted voice, a silent scream
Where the lovers love and the dreamers dream
You stand and dream alone
You took your sacrifice to the gods of war
Traded your children's lives for a mess of gold
And you beat your ploughshares into swords
Breathing free
Once in a lifetime
You live and love
Once in a lifetime
You die
Once in a lifetime
The sun goes down
Protect and survive

Here hangs an open landscape
A wild and huge frontier
From a harsh and a barren wasteland
Through the grave to the promised field

You came, you trapped, you charted
You laid the railraods and the schemes
And you tamed this land by enterprise
And by the power of your dreams

From the olden coasts of Ireland
From the Hebridean shores
With the forgotten chosen ones
Running from Europe in droves

There's a town in Manitoba
They say the windows touch the sky
But across the brine the shipyards close
In this garden flowers die

Still the homelands divide us
Like your blood red brothers of the plains
But where they grieve a candle still burns
A prayer from a flicker to a flame

But you made this Clan great
And you made this nation bloom
And you rose
With your people through the new world
Like a rocket to the moon

Sunburst
The morning moor
The light of God
The heart of youth
I look around me
My eyes find their rest on this garden
The flower of the west

The silent skies
An innocent heart
Holding the moment away
From time in the dark
All I see. All I know
Is touching the sacred earth
Warming the hallowed ground

Walk on
Walk on
Walk on

Sunrise
The colour frontier
The aging light
The sight that knows no fear
I look over Orinsay to the Trumisgarry shore
To Aloter
And the road to Ahmore

The silent skies
An innocent heart
Holding the moment away
From time in the dark
All I see. All I know
Is touching the sacred earth
Warming the hallowed ground

I survive the childhood universe
And I step the naked heath
Where the breathing of the vanished
Lies in acres round my feet
Past Loch Scadavagh Loch Fada
And the flatlands to the east
Where the dark blue mass of Eval
Meets the rising Rock of Lee
Between the Crogary and Maairi
I started to descend
Loch Aongais on my left hand side
I look across to Clett
Collies barking on the outrun
Dunlin dancing on the sand
Breakers show round Corran Vallique
And empty the Atlantic on the strand

The silent skies
An innocent heart
Holding the moment away
From time in the dark
All I see. All I know
Is touching the sacred earth
Warming the hallowed ground

Flower of the west

Like shadows on the wall
You come and you go
Through the streets
And the rain that falls down
On our sin
No more good-byes
Forever this way
Whenever the greatest flame in the world
Starts burning

This is our life, and our time
And nothing, is ever going to break us
Now we're on our own

Always in your eyes
A waking of souls
We gaze out on the road
That brought us up
To this place
The signposts never change
We'll go where they lead
Whenever the day to break us comes
We'll not give in

This is our life, and our time
And nothing, is ever going to break us
Now we're on our own
This is our place, in our lives
And no one can ever change this moment
Or pull this mountain to the ground

Live the day when the flame is strong
Live the day when the flame is strong
Come the day when love is gone
Take it over, Take it over

Live the day when the flame is strong
Live the day when the flame is strong
Come the day when love is gone
Take it over

This is our life, and our time
And nothing, is ever going to break us
Now we're on our own
This is our place, in our lives
And no one can ever change this moment
Or pull this mountain to the ground

Air sgiath a' seoladh nan neoil
'S an domhain liath
Mar dhealbh a' tighinn beo tro na sgothan
'S mi a' tilleadh gu tir
Alba nam beanntan ard
Nan acraichean lom
Thairis air na lochan mointich
Nan coilltean 's nan gleann
Ach 'se sealladh leointe is gann
Tha an seo aig ceann thall an linn
Talamh alainn nan daoine
Fhathast an lamhan duine no dithis
Cuibhlean stolda mu dheas
Na fasaichean a tuath
An taigh-mor falamh an Dun-Eideann
Gun chumhachd gun ghuth
*Sibhse chuir achadh ri achadh
Taigh ri taigh
Gus nach bi ait anns an tir
An gabh sibh comhnaidh air leth
Ach 's math dhomh bhith seo an drasd
A cur failt air a' bhlas
'San tir a tha cho you're dhomh an diugh
Is a bha I nuair bha mi 'nam phaisd
*Bho Isaiah 5-8
Scotland
This flight is sailing through the see
Louds
And the blue heavens
The homeland appears like a developing photograph
Through the mists as I return to land
I see Scotland of the high mountains
And the empty acres
Flying low across the moorland lochs
The forests and the glens
But it's
A wounding and a hollow sight
Here as we reach the end of the century
The beautiful soil of the people
Still in the hands of the few
I see the wheels of industry at a standstill
And the northern lands wasted
And the empty house in Edinburgh
Withou
T authority or voice
You that have laid field upon field
House upon house
Till there be nowhere for you to be placed alone
In the midst of all the earth
But it is good for me to be here now
As I welcome the warmth
In this land that's as exciting
For me today
As it was the day I was born