[Intro]
The train screamed like an iron bird,
Its smoke devoured the west.
I watched the mountains fade away
With a stone inside my chest.

[Verse]
They took us past the rivers,
Past towns of staring eyes,
Past fields that did not know our songs,
Beneath unfamiliar skies.
The children asked where home had gone,
The old ones would not speak,
And every mile of iron rail
Made the strongest warrior weak.

[Pre-Chorus]
No canyon wind, no cedar flame,
No hoofbeat on the plain,
Only smoke and strangers calling
History by another name.

[Chorus]
Prisoner of the East, far from the sun,
Far from the trails where my people run.
You can sell my face, you can count my grief,
But I am more than a Prisoner of the East.

[Verse]
They put us where the sea wind moaned,
Where the air was wet and strange,
Where soldiers measured every breath,
Where sorrow had no range.
They asked me for my old war stories,
Asked me how the west was won,
But I carried graves behind my eyes
For every daughter, every son.

[Pre-Chorus]
A cage can wear a friendly face,
A chain can smile like gold,
But exile is a winter
That makes the spirit old.

[Chorus]
Prisoner of the East, far from the sun,
Far from the trails where my people run.
You can sell my face, you can count my grief,
But I am more than a Prisoner of the East.

[Instrumental]
Mournful strings, slow drums beat,
Guitar like footsteps in the street.

[Bridge]
I dreamed of dust.
I dreamed of stone.
I dreamed the hawk
Would guide me home.
But morning came
With iron bars,
And foreign rain
Instead of stars.

[Breakdown]
Do not mistake my silence
For the death of who I am.
A river taken from its canyon
Still remembers where it ran.

[Build-up]
Far away, still I know,
Where the desert fires glow.

[Chorus]
Prisoner of the East, far from the sun,
Far from the trails where my people run.
You can sell my face, you can count my grief,
But I am more than a Prisoner of the East.

[Chorus]
Prisoner of the East, chained to their tale,
Still my spirit rides the trail.
Even when the body knows defeat,
The soul outrides the Prisoner of the East.

[Outro]
The train screamed like an iron bird,
Its smoke devoured the west.
And I held the fading mountains
Like a wound inside my chest.