Lyrics to
Burn Down The Mission

This version of Burn Down The Mission was released by Elton John in 1970.

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You tell me there’s an angel in your tree
Did he say he’d come to call on me
For things are getting desperate in our home
Living in the parish of the restless folks I know

Everybody now bring your family down to the riverside
Look to the east to see where the fat stock hide
Behind four walls of stone the rich man sleeps
It’s time we put the flame torch to their keep

Burn down the mission
If we’re gonna stay alive
Watch the black smoke fly to heaven
See the red flame light the sky

Burn down the mission
Burn it down to stay alive
It’s our only chance of living
Take all you need to live inside

Deep in the woods the squirrels are out today
My wife cried when they came to take me away
But what more could I do just to keep her warm
Than burn burn burn burn down the mission walls

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Want more lyrics and songs by Elton John?

Elton John has released many songs over the years besides Burn Down The Mission. Elton John released songs from 1969 to 2004 spanning across albums like Empty Sky, Tumbleweed Connection, Elton John, Madman Across The Water, 11/17/2010, Honky Chateau, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Don't Shoot Me (I'm Only The Piano Player), Caribou, Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy, Rock Of The Westies, Blue Moves, A Single Man, Victim Of Love, 21 At 33, The Fox, Jump Up!, Too Low For Zero, Breaking Hearts, Ice On Fire, Leather Jackets, Reg Strikes Back, Sleeping With The Past, The One, Duets, Reg Dwight's Piano Goes Pop, Made In England, The Big Picture, One Night Only, Songs From The West Coast, and Peachtree Road. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Elton John.

If you're a fan of 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1970 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Burn Down The Mission by Elton John

When you decide to study the lyrics to Burn Down The Mission, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1970 song by Elton John. Some of the lyrics to Burn Down The Mission have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only Elton John and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to Burn Down The Mission if you take apart the structure of the words. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Burn Down The Mission" means the words set to the music of Burn Down The Mission, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Elton John. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Burn Down The Mission and the lyrics to Burn Down The Mission are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Elton John who came here looking just for the lyrics to Burn Down The Mission, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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