Lyrics to find the cost of freedom

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Lyrics

"Find The Cost Of Freedom"

Find the cost of freedom
Buried in the ground
Mother Earth will swallow you
Lay your body down

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Writer(s): Stephen A Stills

1. AZLyrics
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3. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Lyrics

live album: "4 Way Street" (1971)

Suite: Judy Blue Eyes

On The Way Home

Teach Your Children

Triad

The Lee Shore

Chicago

Right Between The Eyes

Cowgirl In The Sand

Don't Let It Bring You Down

49 Bye Byes / America's Children

Love The One You're With

King Midas In Reverse

Laughing

Black Queen

4-Way Street Medley

Pre-Road Downs

Long Time Gone

Southern Man

Ohio

Carry On

Find The Cost Of Freedom

Daylight again, following me to bed
I think about a hundred years ago, how my fathers bled
I think I see a valley, covered with bones in blue
All the brave soldiers that cannot get older been askin' after
You
Hear the past a callin', from Ar- -megeddon's side
When everyone's talkin' and noone is listenin', how can we
Decide?

(Do we) find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground

Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down
Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down
(Find the cost of freedom buried in the ground)

My Opinion@ceresmary that's a great take and I'm glad you brought up the live "Manassas" version. It brings in Daylight Again, which @haskmojo included the lyrics for and some of those lyrics you were asking about are from that.

That long intro -- Manassas -- gets to what Daylight Again's lyrics bring up and explores it in greater depth. It starts off:

Daylight again, following me to bed

It's not the first thing that's kept Stills up all night (4 + 20) but he's clearly haunted by thoughts he cannot escape. In this case, he's thinking back 100 years to the Civil War and seeing a battlefield "covered with bones in blue." Those skeletons are not just lying there, however, they're calling out to you to come join them.

Daylight Again ends with this line:

When everyone's talking and no one is listening, how can we decide?

In Manassas, after singing about the the costs and causes of war 100 years ago this becomes:

Today, my friends, we find ourselves with a similar sort of problem
We got everyone talking and nobody is listening
All we want to do is change the course of our lives
Change the way we think
Change the face of our land
Change the ways of this world
Coz it's a new time

He sings more about how change always comes, how we need to make the changes, how change is hard. About why we need change because of how much more powerful our weapons are, but he also says the most powerful weapon we have -- more powerful than any gun or bomb -- is our minds. If we can use our minds instead our guns, then:

The changes will come without the shedding of a drop of blood.
... but we find the cost of freedom buried in the ground
Mother Earth will swallow you, lay your body down.

So yes, the song says that soldiers pay for freedom with their lives, but that is not the primary message.

So what does it mean to Find the Cost of Freedom?

Soldiers have been dying paying this cost and nothing ever changes. Down through our ancestry they're calling out to say it's now your turn to pay that price. Mother Earth will take you is as it did for them. And still nothing will change if that is the price we pay, if blood is the currency we use to pay for freedom.

If blood is the cost of freedom, we will never stop paying the price for something we will never have.

In Manassas, you can hear Stills' frustration and its the frustration of a generation. In 1973, the US negotiated a peace with Vietnam but the fighting continued for two more years. We went into Vietnam to keep the Vietnamese people "free from communism". The Vietnamese people wanted to be free to choose their own path, and they had already been fighting the French for their freedom for years when we chose to intervene.

When everyone's talking and nobody's listening....

Other comments on this song bring up the politics. Is this patriotic? What about the people who spit on our soldiers when they came back? Stills is calling out both sides because neither listens. It's not the first time he's done so. Go back several years to Buffalo Springfield and For What It's Worth:

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong

Other artists of the time were expressing the same sentiments. Anger was directed towards the government and the generals, the decisions makers who decided who lives and who dies and for what. What was needed was for people of any and all perspectives to just sit down and talk, use that most powerful weapon that is our minds, and find a way to a true, lasting freedom for which no one has to die to achieve. Just a few examples to consider that touch on this:

One Tin Soldier -- The Original Caste
Scarborough Fair/Canticle -- Simon & Garfunkel
Fortunate Son -- Creedence Clearwater Revival
Woodstock -- Joni Mitchell
What's Going On -- Marvin Gaye
Get Together -- The Youngbloods

The first talk about just how tragic losing lives to war is. The next gets right at putting the blame on the establishment that demands sacrifice but makes sure they never pay it themselves. The last three get to that theme that really drove the peace movement of the time, which was that the path to peace was one of understanding and love.