Will the Salmon Come Home? Lyrics

Chinook runs used to fill the streams till you could walk across

Guthrie sang for Grand Cooley but did not feel the loss

Today those streams run empty of the wild fish they love

Orca mamas hungry, cannot feed their young

Will the salmon come home

Against the odds, water's warm

Will the salmon come home

When I'm old, dead and gone

Today Bonneville has no songwriter, they do not have the cash

Moving fish with elevators hasn't brought them back

Taxpayers we've all paid to keep these dams alive

For 50 years Nez Perce have prayed Our Brother won't survive this

Will the salmon come home

Against the odds, water's warm

Will the salmon come home

When I'm old, dead and gone

I don't know if I can fit this story in a song

Celilo fed 10,000 years of people now it's gone

The fish came back a week after the Elwha dam came down

A billion-dollar band-aid won't make a heart unbound

Call me a naïve songwriter, mired in the past

But when our cities flood with water which legacy will last

Bureaucracy too full of fear to address a mistake

Or ancient rivers running clear how my young heart aches

Will the salmon come home

Against the odds, water's warm

Will the salmon come home

When I'm old, dead and gone

When I'm old, dead and gone

When I'm old, dead and gone