The motive was to work
Till a fortune of size grew
With which a life of leisure
By reason would ensue
From which no turn of hardship
Would threaten to undo
To sacrifice the short to invest
In the long view
And so it went, the hours
And weekends they pushed through
A family full of ghosts
But the payoff would yield huge
Till decades down the line
This epiphany stung true
They'd raised their worth along
With a son that they never knew

They ride, they ride
They chasing crescents
In the sky but they hold only a vision
They ride
They riding toward the sheen of an image
They ride that road to riches
Right past a road of riches

Road to riches

They'd gather at the park always after class
Where troubles of the youth
Never seem to last
And fantasize of things
That they hoped to have
How they would all be famous
Signing autographs
They'd let out a laugh
But one boy among 'em
This meant more than he showed
'cause absentee parents always left him alone
So love and adoration
Wasn't something he'd known
And he was adamant that someday
He would have it in droves
And so it was, celebrity life came to pass
With followers
And all the acclaim that you could ask
But something was amiss
It still eluded his grasp
He missed belonging like those days
At the park that he'd had

They ride, they ride
They chasing crescents in the sky
But they grasp only the vision
They ride
They riding toward the sheen of an image
They ride their road to riches
Right past this road of riches

They ride
Only they hold a vision
Just an image
They ride, they ride
Riding the road to riches
They ride, they ride
Just an image
Chasing crescents in the sky
They're riding a road to riches
I ride, I ride
I'm riding that road of riches

They ride for that pot of gold
As they're blinded by their obsession
Racing toward a rainbow engaged
In a fool's errand
Dogged in pursuit there's
No altering their perception
Till they spin out at the bend
And they wake up inside the trenches
And this the moral
Them fables had failed to mention
Many fall to ruin succeeding
In their objectives
Realized opportunities flourish
Among the wreckage
When goals are selected
But methods are ignored
When misaligned incentives
Undermine a greater cause
When shadows of perspective cloak
The end you're working towards
Like movements of the heavens
That the senses don't regard
These moments pass 'em by
Their own precession of the stars
So put to work all the lessons
That you can draw
To reach out for the moon
Let it capture you from afar
As seams of perfection are sewn
With the silk of flaws
The riches that you seek
Are existent right where you are