Will the Salmon Come Home?

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