Intro:
D(addE) D G    (x2)

G       D                            G            
Well, I dreamed I saw the knights in armour coming,

        D                 G    
Sayin' something about a queen.

             D                    A                
There where peasants singin' and drummers drummin'

         G                A   
And the archer split the tree.

             Bm              C        
There was a fanfare blowin' to the sun

          G               C     
that was floating on the breeze.

D                     A         
Look at Mother Nature on the run

        C             G   
In the nineteen seventies.

D                     A         
Look at Mother Nature on the run

        C             G   
In the nineteen seventies.

                                    
I was lying in a burned out basement
With a full moon in my eye
I was hoping for replacement
When the sun burst through the sky
There was a band playing in my head
And I felt like getting high
I was thinking about what a friend had said
I was hoping it was a lie
Thinking about what friend had said
I was hoping it was a lie
                           
Horn solo (lasts one verse)

Well I dreamed I saw the silver spaceship flying
In the yellow haze of the sun
There were children crying and colours flying
All around the chosen one
All in a dream, all in a dream
The loading had begun
Flying mother nature's silver seed
To a new home in the sun
Flying mother nature's silver seed
To a new home


The song is about the environment. The biggest clue is the title. A typical gold rush town would be a town that sprung up very fast once gold was discovered to support the gold prospecters. As long as the mining business was good the town thrived. Once the gold was gone, the town died and everyone moved on. Neil used this as a metophor for his song about the environment, but on a global scale. His song was about the Earth's resources being depleted and polution being so bad, that the human race or life in general could no longer survive on the Earth. The human race selects a lucky few to fly off the Earth in rockets (silver spaceships...mother nature's silver seed to plant this Earth's life onto a new Earth) in search of a new planet so the species can survive. I always interpreted the "full moon in my eye" as really being the sun blocked out by so much polution that it appears to be the moon. The line "I was hoping for a replacement" I interpreted to mean that the person has missed out on the lottery to go to the new planet...he's not one of the lucky few, but hopes he might replace one of the lucky few if for some reason that person can't make the trip. "Look at mother nature on the run in the 1970's" is also an obvious clue that the song is about concern for the environment. But it seems to be the person's dream (nightmare) that if the environment is not taken better care of, this scenario might happen in the future.
- Steve, Fenton, MO

SONG FACTS   WHAT DO YOU THINK THE SONG IS ABOUT?

To a new home in the sun