I meant to ask you how to fix that car
I always meant to ask you about the war
And what you saw across a bridge too far
Did it leave a scar
Or how you navigated wings of fire and steel
Up where heaven had no more secrets to conceal
And still you found the ground beneath your wheels
How did it feel
Bang the drum slowly play the pipe lowly
To dust be returning from dust we begin
Bang the drum slowly I'll speak of things holy
Above and below me world without end
I meant to ask you how when everything seemed lost
And your fate was in a game of dice they tossed
There was still that line that you would never cross
At any cost [ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/e/emmylou_harris/bang_the_drum_slowly.html ]
I meant to ask you how you lived what you believed
With nothing but your heart up your sleeve
And if you ever really were deceived
By the likes of me
Bang the drum slowly play the pipe lowly
To dust be returning from dust we begin
Bang the drum slowly I'll speak of things holy
Above and below me world without end
Gone now is the day and gone the sun
There is peace tonight all over Arlington
But the songs of my life will still be sung
By the light of the moon you hung
I meant to ask you how to plow that field
I meant to bring you water from the well
And be the one beside you when you fell
Could you tell
Bang the drum slowly play the pipe lowly
To dust be returning from dust we begin
Bang the drum slowly I'll speak of things holy
Above and below me world without end
Frustrating that this forum refuses to let us listen to the song and read the lyrics at the same time! Also that our posts are reduced to lower-case letters only, making us look like uneducated dolts who don't know how to capitalize our correspondence.
by Unregistered on Jan 8th 2012 2:28 pm
A beautiful tribute by emmylou to her dad, usmc hero "bucky" harris. Major harris was shot down over north korea and spent the last year and a half of the korean war in a chinese pow camp, listed as mia. Upon his return, bucky was highly decorated for his steadfast resistance to torture and mistreatment of his fellow pows. He survived and completed a successful career in the corps following aerial combat tours in wwii and korea. Upon his death after retirement, elh wrote this tribute song to him. Here, she is her "daddy's girl", regretting the things she never asked or said or did before her daddy passed. So many of emmylou's best songs are written about the anguish of losing people she loved during her life, you can tell she has that unique ability to write what her heart feels. It's songs like this which make us love elh on levels which transcend aural enjoyment.