Lyrics

One by one the treaties were broken
Each time the lesson was the same
That every breath spent on negotiation
Would only serve to fan the flame
Side by side they had been neighbors
For centuries without dispute
And now there's a time bomb ticking
in each conversation
Welcome to Beirut.

Peace and Quiet smoldering tonight
Peace and Quiet
Marking time between the fights
You can pray for gentle weather
And the strength to live together
And cry yourself to sleep
In the Peace and Quiet, dark and deep.

In this graveyard of asphalt and ashes
Looking for a way to live
With no common ground and no hope
that anyone
Can forget it or forgive
So in quiet desperation
A kind of promise has been vowed
To stay on your own side,
always walk with hooded eyes
And never speak your differences out loud.

You read aloud from the paper this morning
Over scrambled eggs and tea
All I could think as you held forth on Lebanon
Is how much it sounds like you and me
The crooked borderlines and minefields
That make two countries of our home
The freezing detente of our cynical civility
Keeping us together and alone.