A long time ago come a man on a track   Walkin' thirty miles with a sack on his back   And he put down his load where he thought it was the best   Made a home in the wilderness      Built a cabin and a winter store   He ploughed up the ground by the cold lake shore   The other travellers came walking down the track   They never went further, no, they never went back      Then came the churches, then came the schools   Then came the lawyers, then came the rules   Then came the trains and the trucks with their load   And the dirty old track was the telegraph road      Yeah, and then came the mines, then came the ore   Then there was the hard times, then there was a war   Telegraph sang a song about the world outside   And the telegraph road got so deep and so wide like a rolling river      My radio says, tonight it's gonna freeze   People drivin' home from the factories   Now here comes six lanes of traffic   Three lanes moving slow      Used to like to go to work but they shut it all down   I got a right to go to work, no work here to be found   Yeah and they say we're gonna have to pay what's owed   We're gonna have to reap from the seed that's sowed      When all the birds up on the wires and up on the poles   They can always get outta this rain and this cold   Then you can hear them singin' out their telegraph code   All the way down the telegraph road      And I'd sooner forget but I remember those nights   Yeah, life was just a bet on a race between the lights   You had your head on my shoulder, had your hand in my hair   Now you actin' little colder like you don't seem care      But just believe in me baby, and I'll get you away   I'm gonna get you out of this darkness and into the day   From all these rivers of headlights, from these river of rain      From the anger that lives on the streets with these names   'Cause I've run every red light on memory lane   I've seen desperation explode into flames   And I don't wanna see it again      From all of these signs, just sayin', 'Sorry but we're closed'   [Incomprehensible]   Down the telegraph road