Journeyman Songtext
von Forss

This is a story of a young man, traveling ancient countrysides, looking for new emotions to experience.
Looking to give more than to get, and understanding the frailty in the notion that nothing is really given to you aside from the very air that you breathe
But things are changing now
Things are rapidly becoming... very different... than they once were


On a southbound train that seems to eat through the German countryside like a mylar saw through wood
Like a hammer breaking through old bones
My reflections are now turning from the circus mirrors and smoke to framed glass
Preparing to separate my interior frailty from the dangers of the outside
Those things I do not quite understand
I can see hints of colored city kid influence
In colorful accents dancing across the foundations of former communist factories
Saying, to me, that I've been here before
Despite this railway being my virgin transport in this oh so foreign place
Chopping through the world I've come to understand as mine
Like a lion's teeth through the ribs of a gazelle
On a hunt
And when we reach Stuttgart
I believe I am a man of different thinking
My energy replenished with each stop between Hamburg and Munich
Visions of Göthe
Thomas Mann immortalised by the artistic politics of iron curtains
Falling as certain as rain
Grape vines growing rooted from the lips of the Rhein see
This particular world I'm traveling through
Is much older than the world I call mine
Today I'm the gunpowder in a continental bullet
A cell in this electric vein coursing through the Black Forest
My destination just beyond the trees
A relatively young man traveling ancient countrysides
And newfangled sidewalk technology
Looking to give more than to get
And understanding the frailty in the notion that nothing is given to you but the air you breathe
And the trees that hide my destination
Resemble loose hairs on the head of an old gentleman from afar
These mountains protecting villages and colonies like a mote
Encircling castles of fallen leaders
Roughly an hour north of the Munich skyline

This trip is very different than any I've been on before
I wish I could transmit this experience through American urban radio and whore-house shopping malls
To Wall Street executives and stay-at-home moms in the Bible belt
Just to say hey look at the world and get off your block
Pick up a book
Stop watching the clock
There is so much more to learn than
Trades and monolingual grades
To be sure
This ride is special
This countryside is ancient
And many of these things I do not understand
But I feel like I've been here before
This ride, the thoughts that come with it
Tell me to cherish life now because the only real gift given to you is the present
The only real gift given to you is right now