The Giants Are Only Asleep

© Tom Shindler 1983

1. Well I live in a land that they call the Northwest
   Where there’s still lots of wild country.
   Where the snow covered mountains fill up the horizon
   And the green forests reach to the sea.
2. Where you see great volcanoes stand peaceful and tall,
   The white snow disguising their fate.
   But the youngest of the giants came roaring to life
   With a blast heard clear across the state.

(Chorus)      And it’s raining mud all over the land
The Mountain’s falling down from the sky.
Thunder and lightning, smoke and steam a rising
And the morning’s as dark as the night.

3. I woke to explosions and rattling windows
   One morning, the eighteenth of May.
   It was hard to believe when they said she had blown,
   I could hear it from so far away.
4. But the radio told us it all was for real,
   That the Mountain had met with her fate,
   And the ash cloud was spreading to blot out the sun,
   And bury one half of the state.              (chorus)
5. (play instrumental verse)
6. The mud flowed down the Toutle, the Cowlitz and Columbia,
   Washing out the bridges on its way.
   Closing roads and cities and scaring politicians,
   The Mountain filled the headlines every day.             (chorus)
7. Is it really any wonder, when you hear the mountains thunder,
   Just like they’ve done so many times before?
   Funny, how so many folks were taken by surprise,
   Like volcanoes never happen anymore…
8. Those lovely white snow peaks, those rulers of mountains,
   Who knows what secrets they keep?
   But when they look like forever, just stop and remember,
   The giants are only asleep.
   But when they look like forever, just stop and remember,
   The giants are only asleep.