Mister pull up a chair   I got time for tears   Tell me all the stories that you never did   Of the salty south   The Seminoles held out   While Geronimo died in a lonely jail      A thousand tides, and   A thousand waves   Takin' it all away      It'll come back in   We'll be gone by then   And it's a miracle we ever learned to live      Drain that land   For a better plan   Sugarcane and the civil man   But now the ringin' dead them pines   Planted in that time   We gonna keep on killin' till they get it right      A thousand tides, and   A thousand waves   Takin' it all away      It'll come back in   We'll be gone by then, oh   And it's a miracle we ever learned to live      I remember the wind   As it was settlin'   And every sun goin' down was a picture then   But we look back at 'em framed   They all look the same   There's no sense of time, no sense of pain      A thousand tides, and   A thousand waves   Takin' it all away      And it'll come back in   We'll be gone by then, oh   And it's a miracle we ever learned to give