The Training of a Yehudi

[bnewman]

This song was previously released as "Yehudi Mind Tricks".  The song hasn't changed, just the title.

The stories of Moses and of Luke Skywalker match up in a lot of places. Being taken away from their parents. Encountering a deeper spiritual reality. Hearing the Call. Standing up to an Empire. But, most of all, what ties them together is the Desert.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

chorus based on Ben Kenobi's theme from Star Wars by John Williams

listen to this song

/ Am - G Am / - - F G / Am F G Am /[1. Am F - G :/[2. F - - G /

 

I was raised in a desert country

Where the sun burns and burns and it seldom rains,

So we drew our water from the meager trickle

In the narrow places that became our chains.

 

Then a cry for rescue was heard in the wasteland,

In the plain disguise of a restless stray,

And this revelation at the edge of freedom:

You have to lose your bearings to find your way.

 

/ Am G F - / Am F - G / Am - F - / - G Am - /

 

And if you break free of your narrow places

To the boundless desert and the endless sky,

Then, in spite of your self, you may touch that vastness,

Find its fire in your inner eye...

 

From the voice of the past I learned the story:

How a kinder power once ruled this land,

And it ruled most justly when it took its counsel

From the wise Yehudi at its right hand.

 

But a new king rose up who knew not the Yehudi,

And he traded their wisdom for the rule of fear;

It was because of that evil I was torn from my mother,

And it was fate, not chance, that I wound up here.

 

And if you can hear the names of your fathers

In these whispering canyons of wind-carved stone,

Then you'll know your part in the coming redemption,

And you'll know you don't stand alone.

 

I don't know if I'm ready to walk in this story —

The Empire is mighty, and I'm so small —

But I'll put my faith in the truth you've shown me:

It's not by might but by spirit that empires fall.

 

So my heritage calls me to rise to this challenge:

To study and learn of the ways of the Force;

For I am Yehudi, like my father before me,

Like a stream in the desert that seeks its source...

 

For a Yehudi can feel the Force flowing through him,

In a moment of stillness, in a heart that's true,

And the faith of your fathers will be with you always —

Call on it as it calls on you!