Lyrics to
Burning Rope

This version of Burning Rope was released by Genesis in 1978.

Our Decade Lyrics Genesis profile has all of the Burning Rope lyrics from 1978 and many more songs from the Genesis discography that we have on file.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to Genesis or about the 1970s in general.

The warming sun, the cooling rain,
The snowflake drifting on the breath of the breeze,
The lightning bolt that frees the sky for you
Yet only eagles seem to pass on through.
The words of love, the cries of hate,
And the man in the moon who seduced you
Then finally loosed you.

You climbed upon a burning rope to escape the mob below,
But you had put the flaming out so that others could not follow,
To be out of the bounds and the barks of those who do not wish you well.

You must blaze a trail of your own, unknown, alone,
But keep in mind
Don’t live to-day for tomorrow like you were immortal.
The only survivors on this world of ours are

The warming sun, the cooling rain,
The snowflake drifting on the breath of the breeze,
The lightning bolt that frees the sky for you
Yet only eagles seem to pass on through.
The words of love, the cries of hate,
And the man in the moon who seduced you
Then finally loosed you.

You’re old and disillusioned now as you realise at last,
That all all you have accomplished here will have soon all turned to dust.
You dream of a future after life, well that’s as maybe, I don’t know.
But you can’t take what you left behind, you’re all alone.
So keep in mind
Don’t live to-day for tomorrow like you were immortal.
The only survivors on this world of ours are

The warming sun, the cooling rain,
The snowflake drifting on the breath of the breeze,
The lightning bolt that frees the sky for you
Yet only eagles seem to pass on through.
The words of love, the cries of hate,
And the man in the moon…

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Want more lyrics and songs by Genesis?

Genesis has released many songs over the years besides Burning Rope. Genesis released songs from 1969 to 2000 spanning across albums like From Genesis To Revelation, Trespass, Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot, Selling England By The Pound, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, A Trick Of The Tail, Wind And Wuthering, ...And Then There Were Three..., Duke, Abacab, Genesis, Invisible Touch, We Can't Dance, Calling All Stations, Genesis Archive 1967-1975, and Genesis Archives #2 1976-92. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Genesis.

If you're a fan of the music of the 1970s looking for more songs from 1978 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Burning Rope by Genesis

The lyrics for Burning Rope are made up of the words, verses and background chorus for the popular 1978 song by Genesis. Like a lot of songs, the lyrics to Burning Rope have both direct meanings and metaphorical context hidden within the song's words. All of the meanings are only truly known by the creators of the lyrics for Burning Rope - Genesis and any of the writers who worked with them on the song.

If you have an interest in the structure of words and phrases, you can dissect the lyrics to Burning Rope by Genesis in multiple ways. 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 Burning Rope" means the words set to the music of Burning Rope, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Genesis. 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 Burning Rope and the lyrics to Burning Rope are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Genesis who came here looking just for the lyrics to Burning Rope, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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