Lyrics Depot is your source of lyrics to San Jacinto by Peter Gabriel. Please check back for more Peter Gabriel lyrics.

San Jacinto Lyrics

Artist: Peter Gabriel
Album: Plays Live

Thick cloud - steam rising - hissing stone on sweat lodge fire
Around me - buffalo robe - sage in bundle - run on skin
Outside - cold air - stand, wait for rising sun
Red paint - eagle feathers - coyote calling - it has begun
Something moving in - I taste it in my mouth and in my heart
It feels like dying - slow - letting go of life

Medicine man lead me up though town - Indian ground -
so far down
Cut up land - each house - a pool - kids wearing water
wings - drink in cool
Follow dry river bed - watch Scout and Guides make
pow-wow signs
Past Geronimo's disco - Sit 'n' Bull steakhouse - white
men dream
A rattle in the old man's sack - look at mountain top -
keep climbing up
Way above us the desert snow - white wind blow

I hold the line - the line of strength that pulls me through
the fear
San Jacinto - I hold the line
San Jacinto - the poison bite and darkness take my sight -
I hold the line
And the tears roll down my swollen cheek - think I'm losing
it - getting weaker
I hold the line - I hold the line
San Jacinto - yellow eagle flies down from the sun -
from the sun

We will walk - on the land
We will breathe - of the air
We will drink - from the stream
We will live - hold the line

Comments/Interpretations

by Couz on 6/3/2008 11:31am
Always my favorite live song by Peter Gabriel and surely one of the most visual lyrics ever written.A hopefull song that ends with a simple message....we will go on.

by JRB on 6/4/2008 6:01pm
This is a great song that documents a conversation that Peter Gabriel had with a Native American he met while staying at a hotel.

by Galileus_76 on 6/10/2008 1:46pm
Awesome live song, always a favorite. When everything goes absurd or dark, hold the line.

by Bridgeen on 9/25/2008 11:19am
yeah, love this song. Working on illustrating it at the moment. Its very sad.

by Jonathan on 12/15/2008 10:38am
Beautiful, the best lyrics, harmony to meditate too. Love is great.

by Xandalis on 12/25/2008 5:07pm
I have never heard a more powerful source of music and message from any other artist. I can only hope he stays with us for many more years.

by Memo on 3/24/2009 10:05pm
una de las mejores canciones de Gabriel, me llega al alma

by Barbara on 6/24/2009 7:42am
Positively amazing, moving, gives the cold shivers

by Mike on 9/3/2009 4:04pm
I too think the character dies, because if you look at the lyrics, they do not only tell about the culture of the white man overwhelming that of the apaches, but to me also the story of an apache man who carries a rattlesnake with him to a mountain top, and let's it bite him so he can then die at peace.

by Leslie on 10/17/2009 10:45pm
Could be, but I think the poison bite and darkness are metaphors for what the white man did (and does) to the indigenous peoples and other living things. The prediction that they would once again be able to drink from the streams comes from a Native American prophecy yet to be fulfilled (but coming soon to a "reality" near you!).

by christy on 11/3/2009 10:58pm
Powerful song powerful artist....love the guy...seen him live in concert 1982 selhurst park crystal place london.The point depot Dublin 1993 and Marley psrk 2006 Dublin...I rate myself a very luck man having seen this Great 3 times live..Peter the Great.

by Lazarus on 11/17/2009 10:40pm
Anyone know what ""San Jacinto"" has to do with the lyrics? Seems far out of place.

by Anna on 10/9/2011 10:02pm
St.Hyacinth(San Jacinto) has everything to do with this song.The saint for our times.

by mike in sd on 12/7/2011 1:54pm
such a beautiful song, but so sad and desperate

by Jay on 5/23/2012 2:26pm
I just can't stop picturing a sun yellow eagle.

by Dan on 12/17/2013 8:21am
I have realized for years how incredible his talent is. I have seen him 4 times in concert. Awesome every time. Love you Peter

by irish on 4/30/2014 3:46am
San jacinto began this xchange.Being such a powerfull song,reminds us of the genius of p.g. through his career and allows us to life in fresh perspectives.

by Barry on 6/23/2014 7:34am
Do any of these lyrics have anything to do with the battle of san jacinto