Before the end of the beginning   Before the finish credits role   There is a brief but brutal truth along   The high and mighty road      Faces tend to run together   Names be lost and legends told   Of the ways to be forgiven   On that high and mighty road      There is a will to test the power   There is the struggle for control   Of the basic rights of passage   Along the high and mighty road      It is a journey for the taking   It is a choice that can be made   It is the soul that may be shaken   It is the spirit to be sane      There is hypocrisy and wonder   When fortunes pale and empires   Home to an ancient way of magic   Along a high and mighty road      Money changers seeking payments   For the privileged to be so bold   To say the train is not too crowded   For a high and mighty road      And the courage may be tested   By judgment harsh and cold   From the monitors of progress   Along that high and mighty road      There are the words that have been spoken   There is the life that's been portrayed   It is a promise to be broken   It is the joy that dies in vain      Pale treasure, fragile beauty   Or the messages set in coal   We delivered as nostalgic on that   High and mighty road      Sacrifice and deprivation   Are spiteful paradoxes sold   As begrudging restitutions   Along that high and mighty road      And yet the faces, oh God the faces   They seldom change from young to old   They only seem to grow more brazen   Along the high and mighty road      It is the future we are trading   It is the prices that we pay   It is the mind that is mistaken   It is the heart we give away