Album: Past, Present And Future (1973)

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• They crossed over the border, the hour before dawn
  Moving in lines through the day
  Most of our planes were destroyed on the ground where they lay
  Waiting for orders we held in the wood
  Word from the front never came
  By evening the sound of the gunfire was miles away
  Ah, softly we move through the shadows, slip away through the trees
  Crossing their lines in the mists in the fields on our hands and on our knees
  And all that I ever was able to see
  The fire in the air glowing red, silhouetting the smoke on the breeze
  
  All summer they drove us back through the Ukraine
  Smolensk and Viasma soon fell
  By autumn we stood with our backs to the town of Orel
  Closer and closer to Moscow they come
  Riding the wind like a bell
  General Guderian stands at the crest of the hill
  Winter brought with her the rains, oceans of mud filled the roads
  Gluing the tracks of their tanks to the ground while the sky filled with snow
  And all that I ever was able to see
  The fire in the air glowing red silhouetting the snow on the breeze
  
  In the footsteps of Napoleon the shadow figures stagger through the winter
  Falling back before the gates of Moscow, standing in the wings like an avenger
  And far away behind their lines the partisans are stirring in the forest
  Coming unexpectedly upon their outposts, growing like a promise
  You'll never know, you'll never know which way to turn, which way to look you'll never see us
  As we're stealing through the blackness of the night
  You'll never know, you'll never hear us
  And the evening sings in a voice of amber, the dawn is surely coming
  The morning roads leads to Stalingrad, and the sky is softly humming
  
  Two broken Tigers on fire in the night
  Flicker their souls to the wind
  We wait in the lines for the final approach to begin
  It's been almost four years that I've carried a gun
  At home it will almost be spring
  The flames of the Tigers are lighting the road to Berlin
  Ah, quickly we move through the ruins that bow to the ground
  The old men and children they send out to face us, they can't slow us down
  And all that I ever was able to see the eyes of the city are opening
  Now it's the end of the dream
  
  I'm coming home, I'm coming home, now you can taste it in the wind, the war is over
  And I listen to the clicking of the train-wheels as we roll across the border
  And now they ask me of the time that I was caught behind their lines and taken prisoner
  "They only held me for a day, a lucky break," I say they turn and listen closer
  I'll never know, I'll never know why I was taken from the line and all the others
  To board a special train and journey deep into the heart of holy Russia
  And it's cold and damp in the transit camp, and the air is still and sullen
  And the pale sun of October whispers the snow will soon be coming
  And I wonder when I'll be home again and the morning answers "Never"
  And the evening sighs, and the steely Russian skies go on forever Writer/s: Alistair Ian Stewart
  Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
  Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 7

• Kim From Campbell River from CanadaAl Stewart told me in person after a concert in Vancouver, that Roads to Moscow is based on Solzhenitsyn’s book; this after I had told him about an essay I wrote in History 12, analyzing each line of the song. He was pleased!
• Vladimir from Cz/ruThe song is not exactly Solzhenitsyn's story (Solzhenitsyn has never been captured) but certainly inspired by it. Generally, it is one of the best songs (or maybe just the best) ever written about Russia in English.
• Bob from CoquitlamI first heard this song in the early '70's and it became a favorite since then.
• Laurie from Vancouver CanadaAs a young girl of 16 reading Alexandr Solzhenitsyn in the early 70s, I remember hearing this song for the first time ... I was blown away. To create a musical story of one of histories horrific events and losses of young lives .It was for me, pure genius and compassion. It still moves me , 40 yrs later .To write and create a symphonic song, 8 mins long, capturing the perspective of a young Russian soldier in a time of such loss and horror, WW 2 , a topic removed from the modern times ... it was like reading and listening to a historical poem. Thank you Al Stewart for honoring the youth, who are the pawns of all wars. I listen this son every Remembrance Day.
• Guy from Woodinville, WaThis song moved me so much when I first heard it as a young man. It is one of the most intelligent and literate songs ever written. It made me a confirmed Al Stewart fan for life. I still look forward to every concert when he comes to the Seattle area. And he still produces fantastic music--the man is amazingly prolific! Just listen to 2006's "Somewhere in England 1915." Brilliant stuff!
• Bill from Oakland, CaMatt's got it right. The song is the story of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who served in the Red Army artillery during the war. The narrative starts with the German invasion in the summer of 1941, describes the epic fighting retreat from Poland to Moscow, and then the slog back as the Russians learned how to beat what had been the best army in the world when it started. But, near the end, Solzhenitsyn wss captured by the Germans, held for a day, and then turned loose when they retreated. Winning the war hadn't helped Stalin's murderous paranoia, and anyone who had such experience, or any other contact with Westerners, Axis OR Allied, was considered likely to have become a spy. So Solzhenitsyn was jailed, tortured, tried, convicted and shipped off to the Gulag. He managed to survive, to outlive Stalin, and he was freed along with thousands of others in the later 1950s. Of course, millions had been sent to the Gulag, and many had died. His ground-breaking fiction, "A Day In The Life Of Ivan Dennisovich" told what the Gulag had been like. Later he produced the 3 volume, non-fiction, "The Gulag Archipelago". Richard Overy's "Why The Allies Won" has a quick and to-the-point analysis of how the Axis, the Nazis, the Facists and the Japanese Army had appeard to be unbeatable when the war started in 1937, but were halted by the fall of 1942, and completely lost strategic initiative by the middle of 1943. Wirth's "Russia At War" tells the military story from the Russian side effectivly, and "Enemy At The Gates", about Stalingrad, captures the exact moment of what Churchill called "The Hinge Of Fate". (Along with El Alamien in North Africa and Midway/Guadalcanal in the Pacific). I've seen Al Stewart perform this song several times and he introduced it as the story of Mr. Solzhenitsyn, with slides while he played, once or twice. Its a great song.
• Matt from San Jose, CaSorry to disagree, but this song is written from the perspective of a Russian soldier.
  
  The end of the song is most chilling. The soldier was captured by the Germans, and then released. Communist Russia was very suspicious of captured soldiers because they though they had been "comprimised." The "special train" that the soldier must board will take him to a kind of exile Siberia, forced by his own government.

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