Stones of Jerusalem

The Sultan named Suleiman re-stacked the walls again

That Sultan Malik al-Mu'attam had destroyed

But before him it was Saladin who captured Jerusalem

From Crusaders who claimed it by conquest in their holy war

Before the Crusaders the churches were made into mosques

Using all the old stones

Those stones were Queen Helena's picked up from Hadrian

Long after Herod was gone

We are the stones of Jerusalem

We are the stones

King David and Solomon give way to Babylon

That falls to the Persians who fall when the Greeks take control

And then come the Maccabees who reign for half a century

Till the legions of Pompeii conquer the region for Rome

We are the stones

Herod and Pilate, Titus and Hadrian

Helena, Constantine, Persians and Byzantines

Muslims, Crusaders, Kurds under Saladin

Then all the Mamluk Sultans from Egypt will come

They'll come stacking us up and tearing us down

Cut from the quarries in sacred ground

Empires will crumble and rise again

And then after their reign is done they fall to the Ottomans

Whose empire remains until World War One

And still the whole story has just begun

We are the stones

We stand like a wave in a fast-moving river

Where nothing and everything change

A tumble of rubble rising on ruins

Jerusalem always remains

We are the stones of Jerusalem

We are the stones