Wondering Where the (Detroit) Lions Are

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I take no pleasure in the Detroit Lions' 0-16 season, no pleasure in their staking an infamous claim in NFL lore. I didn’t want to see it happen, ever.

But singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn’s 1979 song “Wondering Where The Lions Are” seems as fitting a musing today as it would have been then as relates to the Detroit Lions. Nothing suggests Cockburn (pronounced "co-burn") intended any connection to the Detroit Lions in his song, but curiously, there are other “signs.”

Cockburn was all over the Lions and maybe even foresaw this 0-16 debacle. His songs “Night Train” and “Pacing The Cage”—both off his 1996 album “The Charity Of Night”—perhaps really were about the late Lions' Hall of Famer Dick “Night Train” Lane and Lions fans, respectively.

It’s a theory.

In “Wondering Where The Lions Are,” Cockburn uses the word “petroglyphs,” which can refer to carving in stone like, say, an 0-16 record.

This slideshow is, with apologies to Daniel Muth and J. Conrad Guest (and mostly Bruce Cockburn), among others. Legit Lions fans Muth and Guest wrote recent, stirring pieces about the Lions on Bleacher Report.

In fact, it was a comment Guest made about the Lions’ storied history that got me “wondering where the Lions are.” Sorry for piling on, guys. I accept the 15-yard penalty.

To enhance this slideshow, open a second screen—speakers on—and go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_NeFrQAF1Q. Click on the song and then go back to the slideshow on Bleacher Report, right to “Begin Slideshow.”

Early hope, 2008

Sun's up, uh huh, looks okay
The world survives into another day
And I'm thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

Barry Sanders

I had another dream about Lions at the door
They weren't half as frightening as they were before
But I'm thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

Fear the Megatron

Walls windows trees, waves coming through
You be in me and I'll be in you
Together in eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

0-15

Up among the firs where it smells so sweet
Or down in the valley where the river used to be
I got my mind on eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

Touchdown, Redskins

And I'm wondering where the Lions are...
I'm wondering where the Lions are...

0-16

Huge orange flying boat rises off the lake
Thousand-year-old petroglyphs doing a double take
Point the finger at eternity
I'm sitting in the middle of ecstasy

Lions out of their cage

Young men marching, helmets shining in the sun,
Polished and precise like the brain behind the gun
(Should be!) they got me thinking about eternity
But some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

Packers win

And I'm wondering where the Lions are...
I'm wondering where the Lions are...

Lion king

Freighters on the nod on the surface of the bay
One of these days we're going to sail away,
we’re going to sail into eternity
some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me