Jon Valley – We Were The Hunted Then lyrics

I want to, I want to'
I want to tell you a story
I want to, I want to'
I want to tell you a story
About a young boy lost in the dark.

My best friend back in high school
Use to say from time to time
Things like, 'All fags ought to have their wing-wongs cut off
And/or be sent to an island'.

I was not amused but I was still too confused to stand up and say anything
Because in 1986, oh lord, what complications that could bring
To a high school boy of a certain type
Not that I knew who I was
Not that those feelings were ripe.
(Oh look out now)

When you live in a climate of fear
Things are not always exactly clear
When what you are is queer
And the worst thing you can be called in the high school halls' was faggot.
When your church implies that your maker will make you
Suffer in the fires of hell for a period of time
That cannot be defined because it never ends
When to be known as one or suspected as one
Was to be an outcast of the highest degree
To be ridiculed in the halls, pushed and threatened
Without much help it would be safe to be betting'
You're not very bloody likely
To reveal the secret that has protected you
You're in no rush to tell anyone
Sometimes your very own soul.

The world was not wired
That salvo had not been fired
This was years before Will and Grace
Or the book of the face

Hunted' hunted' hunted'

We were cut off from each other
Our sisters, our brothers
Isolated and unaware
That there were others out there

Hunted' hunted' hunted'

And always the dogs barking in the distance, always.
Always searching, always tracking, always hunting.

Even when you had suspected
That you had just stared into a sympathetic pair of eyes
You must realize
That to reach out across the void
Was to lower your defenses
And to do so felt like leaving your senses
Because it was a line that could not be uncrossed
And so we let the moment expire.

Dogs barking in the distance
Dogs barking in the distance
Dogs barking in the distance

We were the hated
We were the feared
We were the misunderstood
We were the hunted
We were just kids
We were just people
Alone in the dark' all alone in the dark.

No!

I was no saint and my best friend was no sinner
In the game of casting stones there's so seldom a winner
You've just got to learn to let go' if there's been a change of heart
Because we all get brainwashed in our own ways
And according to the days we're assigned
Go ahead, I dare you, cast that first stone.

Far worse before my time
Far better after my time, but at press time
There's still many miles to go
Especially round the globe.

There's been heroes along the way
Of which I was not one
Who broke down the stone walls
That will not be undone
So out into the open the hushed could run
I hope and pray before all is said and done
We'll stand around the forest fire forever put out
And in the cooled down asses
We'll sing and dance and shout.

We were the hunted then
Denied our place back when
Oh but never, no never, never again.

We were the hunted
We were the hunted
We were the hunted then.

We were the hunted then
Denied our place back when
Oh but never, no never, never again.