- published: 12 Feb 2016
- views: 8714
A bellwether is any entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends or to presage future happenings.
The term is derived from the Middle English bellewether and refers to the practice of placing a bell around the neck of a castrated ram (a wether) leading his flock of sheep. The movements of the flock could be noted by hearing the bell before the flock was in sight.
In politics, the term is more often applied in the passive sense to describe a geographic region where political tendencies match in microcosm those of a wider area, such that the result of an election in the former region might predict the eventual result in the latter. In a Westminster-style election, for example, a constituency, the control of which tends frequently to change, can mirror in its popular vote the result on a national scale.
What if there's time to kill?
what if there's a blinding will to go down?
what if there'e a restlessness
that no one even knows?
There's a comforting thought to hang around.
while everyone else is beating their days
into the groand.
Chorus:
why don't we go pack it up
and drive us blind,
where the sun in south dakota
never seems to end
never meet again.
If you move your place to fall,
isn't that the rush of it all?
our skyline thinks it's bigger than it is.
Your dreams are calling out,
but your heart's patina.
no blue is darker than
the shade you're in.
Chorus