Lyric

The chains were loud before I saw their faces

Too big to kneel and far too thin to stand

I kept two fingers on my string from habit

And watched them flinch away from that bare hand

He told them they were free and no one stirred

So I stood next to him without a word

I watched a skull become a face I knew

The man we pulled out of a cell that day

He said it takes a friend to tell the two

And I don't know this man enough to say

They sent us out and shut the heavy door

And no one talks about the south road anymore

A week of hammers, smaller bowls of grain

And no one on the wall was really talking

Then all at once, beyond the empty plain

The whole horizon started walking

I still have to give these back

The crown, the gold around my wrists

The weight that hangs against my neck

None of it was ever mine

So I can't lose it on this wall

And I can't lie down next to it

I still have to give these back

He could have sent me where the roads were safe

I told him this was mine and I would stay

He put the crown and gold into my hands

And asked me if I'd bring them back some day

He never told me I should stay alive

And that's the only way I heard him say it

I still have to give these back

The crown, the gold around my wrists

The weight that hangs against my neck

The first ones reach the wall and I let go

These borrowed wrists are faster than my own

The gate goes up in smoke somewhere below

I can't look down, I hold this stretch alone

I still have to give these back

The crown, the gold around my wrists

The weight that hangs against my neck

He told me that I could have left

And I'm still standing on this wall

And nothing out there gets to keep me

I still have to give these back

I still have to give these back