April 18, 1906

One morning before 5: 15
 Before the sun's first rays were seen
 Something in the air just seemed to call you
 You stepped out in the silent street
 And felt the earth beneath your feet
 Without a thought of what would soon befall you
 The city lay enmeshed in sleep
 Had silence ever been this deep
 Or was this still a dream of your own making?
 In answer came a rumbling sound
 As if a moaning from the ground
 And all the world around you started shaking
 That's when hell broke loose in Frisco (San Francisco)
 On a quiet april dawn
 And the city fell in ruins all around you
 That's the day that nature showed you
 That the world we walk upon
 Has the power to destroy you and astound you
 On Courney Street the workers slept
 While down below a young girl wept
 In sorrow for the path that she had taken
 In China Town the lonely men layed dosed in an opium den
 And hoped that from this dream they'd never waken
 And from his palace Hotel room, a banker starred into the gloom
 And realised that ruin was upon him
 While in an alley in the back
 A hobo with bindle sack
 Lamented the bad luch that had undone him
 That's when hell broke loose in Frisco (San Francisco)
 On a quiet april dawn
 And the city fell in ruins all around you
 That's the day that nature showed you
 That the world we walk upon
 Has the power to destroy you and astound you
 As buildings tumbled to the street
 The prayers of dying men compete
 with groans from underneath the place they'd fallen
 The earth itself cries out in pain
 It shutters once and once again
 And then silent as the God they're calling
 And all around the town
 The clocks bare silent witness to the chocks
 While water mains lie shattered underground
 Then someone shouts "Beware the fire!"
 And suddenly the flames lead higher
 To hungrily devour the fallen town
 That's when hell broke loose in Frisco (San Francisco)
 On a quiet april dawn
 And the city fell in ruins all around you
 That's the day that nature showed you
 That the world we walk upon
 Has the power to destroy you and astound you
 A hundred years and more have passed since then
 How can it be that I can see what you saw?
 Feel what you felt again?
 This morning before 5: 15
 Before the sun's first rays were seen
 Somehow through the years I heard you calling