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Wage III of 3 · Ninth Circle Records
Sabbath Ended
The farewell EP. Four songs; the shortest and slowest they ever recorded. Released three weeks before September 11, 2001. The band played the songs live twice and then stopped forever. Boyd said in the studio that the message had gotten as many amps behind it as it needed.
- 01The Congregation Left5:15
Words as entered
They did not leave all at once That is not how a room empties One family moved for the work One family stopped explaining why And the back pew went first The back pew always goes first He counted them every Sunday He never said the number out loud He would say the Lord does not take attendance And then he would count them again The congregation left The congregation left Nobody slammed the door Nobody slammed the door The hymn book stayed The hard hat stayed on the seat where he set it down The furnace stayed cold in the basement And the sign out front still said All are welcome And it was true And it did not matter A town does not decide to end A town runs out of people who remember why it started That is slower than a closing That is worse than a closing The congregation left The congregation left Nobody slammed the door Nobody slammed the door All are welcome All are welcome All are welcome And nobody came
- 02Silo6:40
- 03Sabbath Ended7:20
- 04The Wages Are Paid8:05
Words as entered
We wrote seven songs And meant to stop We wrote six more And meant to stop We wrote four more And this is the last one My father said the wages of sin is death I said, Daddy, everybody dies He said, son, not all at once It's paid out by the week Like any other wage One house at a time The men he preached to drew two wages One on Friday at the mill And one on Saturday night THE WAGES ARE PAID THE WAGES ARE PAID One you earn with your hands One you earn with your sin THE WAGES ARE PAID EVERY ONE OF THEM PAID And nobody else Can draw them for you I sang about the seven sins for eight years Like I was standing somewhere else Like the vices were the town's and not my own I let the pit go cold at work and blamed the wood I brought my temper home and called it righteous I took the softer thing more times than I can count I am not singing this from higher ground You don't get out of the story By closing the book You don't get out of the vice By naming it and moving on You get out by doing the harder thing Every day For as long as you're standing THE WAGES ARE PAID THE WAGES ARE PAID Mine came by the week Same as everybody's THE WAGES ARE PAID EVERY ONE OF THEM PAID And I'm still standing So I'm still at work For as long as you're standing For as long as you're standing The wages are paid