Sacrifice – Song Description
“I’d do it all again, if only you’d been standing there at the journey’s end.” The bitterness running through this song comes from a specific place, and it isn’t that the love itself was fake. It’s the discovery, arriving too late to change anything, that the giving was entirely real on only one side of the relationship the whole time. The song doesn’t regret the sacrifice itself — the title makes that fairly clear, and the conditional in that closing line, “if only,” keeps the door open rather than slamming it. What it regrets is not knowing, while all that giving was happening, that it had already become one-directional, that the other person had quietly stopped matching it verse for verse. It’s a harder, less forgiving song than most of what surrounds it in this collection, and I’ve deliberately left it that way rather than smoothing the ending into something more consoling, because consolation would have been dishonest about how it actually felt at the time, and this book has tried, wherever possible, not to trade honesty for comfort.
Verse 1
I sacrificed my world for you
Why didn’t you do the same?
My mind was strong and willing
Now somehow I’m to blame
I came back home broken
The work cut me to the bone
Cutting wood from dawn till dusk
Believing I’d bring us home
Verse 2
The days rolled by so quickly
My body weak each day
My heart stayed strong and faithful
Never drifting far away
Little did I know then
There was nothing left to save
I was fighting for tomorrow
While you quietly walked away
Chorus
I sacrificed my world for you
Every dream I knew
I placed tomorrow in your hands
Believing we’d see it through
I gave my heart
I gave my soul
I gave my every day
I sacrificed my world for you…
While yours slipped quietly away
Verse 3
You’d already made your journey
Long before I knew
I was still building futures
Still believing you
He came and stood beside you
I never saw the signs
While I was chasing daylight
You were leaving me behind
Bridge
If I’d held you closer
Instead of working late
Would love have found a reason
Or was it simply fate?
Some questions have no answers
Some wounds refuse to heal
The deepest cuts are often made
By things we never feel
Final Chorus
I sacrificed my world for you
Every dream I knew
I placed tomorrow in your hands
Believing we’d see it through
I gave my heart
I gave my soul
I gave my every day
I sacrificed my world for you…
And watched our love fade away
Outro
I sacrificed my world for you…
I’d do it all again…
If only you’d been standing there…
At the journey’s end.
Lyrics Michael Forty
Voice Michael Forty