Album: Year Of The Cat (1976)

Charted: 42

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• Fishing boats go out across the evening water
  Smuggling guns and arms across the Spanish border
  The wind whips up the waves so loud, the ghost moon sails among the clouds
  Turns the rifles into silver on the border
  
  On my wall the colors of the maps are running
  From Africa the winds they talk of changes coming
  Torches flare up in the night, the hand that sets the farms alight
  Has spread the word to those who're waiting on the border
  
  In the village where I grew up nothing seems the same
  You never see the change from day to day
  No one notices the customs slip away
  
  Late last night the rain was knocking on my window
  I moved across the darkened room and in the lamp glow
  Thought I saw down in the street the spirit of the century
  Telling us that we're all standing on the border
  
  In the islands where I grew up nothing seems the same
  The patterns that remain an empty shell
  There's a strangeness in the air, you feel too well
  
  Fishing boats go out across the evening water
  Smuggling guns and arms across the Spanish border
  The wind whips up the waves so loud, the ghost moon sails among the clouds
  Turns the rifles into silver on the border
  
  On the border
  On the border
  On the border Writer/s: Alistair Ian Stewart
  Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 6

• Kdc from CanadaSpeaking about this song with the BBC, Stewart explained: "The first verse is about the Basque Separatist movement and then the second verse is about what was then the Rhodesian crisis. Mugabe: 'The hand that sets the farms alight has spread the word to those who're waiting on the border.' Thirty years after I wrote the song, Mugabe was actually setting fire to all the white farms."
• Juan Medina from Wilmington, NcI always thought this song was about the Rif War in Spanish Morocco: It fits perfectly!
• Former Spanish Grande from SpainWell, in modern Spanish history there was only one instance when "from Africa the winds they talk of changes coming" and, alas, it was when Franco's troops made it to Spain. "The hand that sets the farms alight has spread the word to those who're waiting on the border" is exactly what happened in 1936, the Franco supporters started it, just some weeks later Queipo de LLano and his troops conquered most of southern Spain.
• David from San DiegoI was surprised, no kind of shocked to learn that Peter White played the spanish guitar solo on this song. I've been listening to this song since its inception in the 70s, and always credited Al Stewart in my mind. Great song, nevertheless. Cinematic, with lyrics to match...
• Janet In Eastlake from Eastlake, OhioI love this ... even when speaking of something as awful as having one's farm burnt to the ground, his lyrics have a deft touch.
  
  I love the part of that goes:
  
  "Late last night the rain was knocking at my window
  I moved across the darkened room and in the lampglow
  I thought I saw down in the street
  The spirit of the century
  Telling us that we're all standing on the border."
  
  He paints such a vivid picture with those words ...
• Mary from WisconsinWhat a haunting tune with beautiful, mysterious lyrics! At first I thought it was about Spain in the 30s, but the Basque Separatist movement makes more sense. Looking back, it seems that Al Stewart, Gerry Rafferty, Steely Dan and a few others began taking music in a more interesting direction in the mid-to-late 80s...

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