Method Acting / Cortez the Killer

There's no beginning to the story
A bookshelf sinks into the sand
And a language learned, and forgot in turn, is studied once again
It's a shocking bit of footage viewed on a shitty TV screen
You can squint at it through snowy static to make out what it means
And keep stretching that antenna hoping that it will come clear
I need some reception, a higher message
Please tell me what to feel
'Cause I don't know what tomorrow brings
It's alive with such possibility
But I know that I feel better when I sing
Burdens are lifted from me
That's my voice rising

So T-Bone, please keep the tape rolling
Gil, keep strumming that guitar
We need a record of our failures
We must document our loves
I've sat too long in my silence
Grown too old in my pain
To shed this skin, be born again
It starts with an ending
And I don't know what tomorrow brings
It's full of such possibility
But I know that I feel better when I sing
Burdens are lifted from me
That's my voice rising

It's not a movie, no private screening
This method acting, I call it living
It's like a fountain, the door is open
We have a problem with no solution
But to love and to be loved

So thank you, friends, for the time we've shared
Your love stays with me like sunlight and air
And though I truly wish I could keep hanging around here
My joy is covering me; soon I will disappear

--

He came dancing across the water with his galleons and guns
Looking for the new world and the palace in the sun
On the shore lay Montezuma with his coca leaves and pearls
In his halls, he often wandered the secrets of the world
And his subjects gathered round him like the leaves around a tree
In their clothes of many colors for the angry gods to see
And the women all looked beautiful and the men stood straight and strong
They offered life in sacrifice, so that others could go on

Hate was just a legend, war was never known
The people worked together and they lifted many stones
Then they carried them to the flatlands, but they died along the way
And they built up with their bare hands what we still can't do today
And I know she's living there and she loves me to this day
I just can't remember when or how I lost my way