Jackson’s still my favorite prolific songwriter, poet and singer. And this is one of my favorite JB songs. It’s powerfully and beautifully written; so many haunting images and a moving melody….it never fails to give me chills. And this morning, it brought me to tears.

The thing is, he’s right.

He’s right.

He’s doing an acoustic concert in Clearwater in November and we’ve got tickets. I’ve seen him a few times –my favorite venue was the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, Calif. — and he never disappoints.

His message is incredibly important.

BEFORE THE DELUGE

Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent
They were gathering the tools
They would need to make their journey back to nature
While the sand slipped through the opening
And their hands reached for the golden ring
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In the troubled years that came before the deluge

Some of them knew pleasure
And some of them knew pain
And for some of them it was only the moment that mattered
And on the brave and crazy wings of youth
They went flying around in the rain
And their feathers, once so fine, grew torn and tattered
And in the end they traded their tired wings
For the resignation that living brings
And exchanged loves bright and fragile glow
For the glitter and the rouge
And in the moment they were swept before the deluge

Now let the music keep our spirits high
And let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by
By and by–
When the light thats lost within us reaches the sky

Some of them were angry
At the way the earth was abused
By the men who learned how to forge her beauty into power
And they struggled to protect her from them
Only to be confused
By the magnitude of her fury in the final hour
And when the sand was gone and the time arrived
In the naked dawn only a few survived
And in attempts to understand a thing so simple and so huge
Believed that they were meant to live after the deluge

Now let the music keep our spirits high
And let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by
By and by–
When the light that’s lost within us reaches the sky