Before the Deluge
Jackson Browne

Intro: |G   C  |G   C  |G   C  |G   D  |

G                            C                       G
  Some of them were dreamers,  and some of them were fools
         Em               C                    G   G/C G
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
             G                                C             G
And with the energy of the innocent they were gathering the tools
           Em                 C               G      G/C G
They would need to make their journey back to nature
              Em                       G
And while the sand slipped through the opening
          C                     G
And their hands reached for the golden ring
         Em                         C                  D      C Em
In their hearts they turned to each otherÕs hearts for refuge
       G                   C               G
In the troubled years that came before the deluge

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

G                                       C G  
  Now let the music keep our spirits hi - gh
                                        C G
Let the buildings keep our children dry - y
                        Em             G  C
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by
         G                     C                 G    D
When the light thatÕs lost within us reaches the sky


Break


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 the 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

Refrain (with extra Òby and byÓ; end on G)