Cat's Claw
From Distance Not Safety
Cat's Claw
The back half of the album opens with its most ambitious piece, and ‘Cat’s Claw’ earns that positioning. Built around a Southwestern legend of a shaman’s bargain gone wrong, it threads an ancient story into something universal with ‘hopeful, we make the bargain, tho the ending is set,’ and the band’s five-part harmony is exactly the right vehicle for that fatalism. The verses settle into a spare, intimate folk-rock feel before the chorus opens up at a brisk clip into something close to classic rock anthemic, the kind of lift that calls to mind early Heart at their most declarative. Coming off ‘Double Black Diamonds’ and heading toward the harder tracks ahead, ‘Cat’s Claw’ serves as the album’s mythological center of gravity: the moment where the stakes feel oldest and the harmonies feel biggest.
Lyrics
The ancestors walked where the red stone stands They learned of the bargain and the blood in the sand
A shaman knelt in the canyon below Cut by cat's claw as the summer moon rose He bargained for water, and plentiful corn For thirteen long moons, the people reborn
But the river ran dry on the next summer night The harvest turned bitter, the stars burned bright They gathered the people, they followed the flood Their memory vanished, the bargain draws blood
Cat's Claw… Take the crown, take the gold Cat's Claw… Take the love you'll never hold Hopeful, we make the bargain, tho the ending is set What the desert gives, we will never forget
A man builds his fortune, a queen finds her king A poet writes verses, the world starts to sing But things turn to dust, and love fades to pain And the songs we remember are lost in the rain
Cat's Claw… Take the crown, take the gold Cat's Claw… Take the love you'll never hold Hopeful, we make the bargain, tho the ending is set What the desert gives, we will never forget
But still we reach, and still we run Still we love beneath the sun Each having has an ending The bargain is pretending
Cat's Claw… Take the crown, take the gold Cat's Claw… Take the love you'll never hold Hopeful, we make the bargain, tho the ending is set What the desert gives, we will never forget
The people walk where the red stone stands We make the bargain, we lose our land The claw hooks us like wind in the sand The bargain is pretending