Couplet 1

I'm just trying to make a record
Forty texts and nine missed calls
They stripped the paint from our cathedral
Found concrete cancer in the walls
Look I don't care about the failings
'Cause I've got plenty of my own
But the inclination to conceal it
Well that doesn't sound like church at all

Couplet 2

I've heard hell is out to get us
Some unrighteous grand assault
I could argue it's the devil
But I could make a case for God
The Pharisee The Woke The Wayward
But it's just three different shades of pride
So like white blood cells protect a body
Perhaps that's how God heals a bride

Couplet 3

You know I've sang before about sequoias
I guess we're more than just one song alike
But as I sit and mourn here in the garden
Indulge me please just one more time
We tower high above our brothers
We reign the sky but for a time
Alas we serve beneath the soil
Where our death just makes a way for life

Instrumental

We're here right now
In the railroad fire of of 2017
Where four years ago in
The Nelder Grove of Giant Sequoias
And right now we're standing
In an area that burned
At low intensity
The fire burned in a
Mix like all wildfires do

Instrumental

It was mostly low and moderate intensity
But there was a portion that
Burned at high intensity as well
And the interesting thing
And for me as an ecologist
The important thing is that
In the low intensity fire areas
There is no giant
Sequoia reproduction
None None from before the fire

Instrumental

None after the fire
Because what they need
For that is high intensity fire
In other words it's fire that's intense
Enough that it actually will kill some
Of the mature giant sequoias
But what you get in the bargain is
Hundreds of times
More giant sequoias

Outro

You can't change where you've been
But you have where you are
Every start has its end
But every end is a start