HEALING: "They'll fall to ruin one day?"

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2026

In search of ways to heal: It's a favorite set of lyrics for us—lyrics from all the way back at the end of our days in the Baltimore City Public Schools.  

In truth, you have to hear these lyrics as they were actually sung. You can do so by clicking here. You'll hear Chrissie Hynde as she sings this story. The recording went to #5 on the U.S. charts.

Joe Scarborough has been teaching a version of this story on Morning Joe in recent days. We don't know whether he's right or wrong.

In our view, he's stressing the dominant part of the story. The lyrics go like this:  

Back on the Chain Gang  

[...]   

The powers that be
That force us to live like we do
Bring me to my knees
When I see what they've done to you.

Well, I'll die as I stand here today
Knowing that deep in my heart
They'll fall to ruin one day
For making us part.

"They'll fall to ruin one day?" In recent days, Scarborough has been preaching that warning, to and about the Republican players who have served as agents of the sitting president's ongoing behaviors.   

(Almost surely, he's "mentally ill," whatever that means—and we Blues keep refusing to ask. The chances are fair that his enablers aren't.) 

Scarborough has been warning the enablers that they'll be called to justice one day for the illegal things they may have done. In the larger sense, it's true! Their appalling conduct has made the seas part as we the people have split in two—have been split into warring Red and Blue nations.   

It's also true that we Blues, through our frequent imperfect conduct, routinely helped the sitting president find his way back into power. For example, we kept sending Vice President Harris out to swear that the southern border was tight as a drum, when everyone knew that it wasn't.  

She kept going out and doing it. To this day, no one has ever explained why she was asked to perform such a ridiculous act.   

History says that it's never been easy to keep a large continental nation or empire together. If we survive the next few years under an unrestrained President Trump, we'll need to find routes to healing.   

With that problem in mind, we've been thinking about a heartfelt passage from Carl Sandburg—a passage about possible sources of healing as Abraham Lincoln made his way to the White House. 

On Tuesday, we showed you how that evocative passage begins. Tomorrow, we'll show you where it goes after that.

Fuller disclosure: What was the backstory to that song? Here's what the leading authority says.