When Giants Wake

[Verse 1]

There's a rumble in the holler

That I ain't heard before

Shook the dust from every window

Put a crack across the floor

The old men at the diner

Just stared into their coffee

Said Son some things stay buried

For a reason if you're lucky

[Verse 2]

There's a shadow on the mountain

Looks bigger than the rain

And the birds all left the valley

Like they knew to catch the train

I can feel it in the timber

I can hear it in the ground

Something old has started breathing

And it ain't slowing down

[Chorus]

When giants wake

You better hold on tight

'Cause the earth don't ask permission

When it starts to come alive

When giants wake

There ain't no running home

You can hide behind your walls

But you can't hide from the stone

Yeah we thought we owned this land

We thought we knew its ways

But we're only passing through

When giants wake

[Verse 3]

The river climbed the highway

The church bell wouldn't ring

A little boy stood in the doorway

And asked me what it meant

I told him Son I don't know

Though I knew more than I'd say

Some debts don't come due slowly

Some come due in one day

[Verse 4]

By midnight every porch light

Was burning through the fog

Folks were standing in their driveways

Watching heaven shake the dark

And somewhere past the timber

Came a sound like rolling steel

I ain't never heard a thunder

That could make the whole earth kneel

[Chorus]

When giants wake

You better hold on tight

'Cause the earth don't ask permission

When it starts to come alive

When giants wake

There ain't no running home

You can hide behind your walls

But you can't hide from the stone

Yeah we thought we owned this land

We thought we knew its ways

But we're only passing through

When giants wake

[Bridge]

Maybe every mountain's got a memory

Maybe every river knows our names

Maybe all the warnings we've forgotten

Come back around when we forget our place

So if tomorrow finds me standing

Where the old oak used to be

I'll thank the ground beneath my boots

For letting me still be here

[Final Chorus]

When giants wake

Let the whole damn valley shake

Let the thunder roll like judgment

Till there's nothing left to fake

When giants wake

I'll stand beneath that sky

I ain't asking for forever

Just a chance to see sunrise

We were never kings of nothing

We were only here a while

And the mountains will remember

Long after we are gone

[Outro]

The ground went still by morning

The birds came back at noon

But somewhere deep beneath the mountain

Something's breathing

And it'll wake again