Where have you been my blue-eyed son?
What have you done there, my darling young one?
I been to the East, swam in blood rivers flowing,
Too tired to feel with a heart cold and broken,
Saw brothers and fathers lie screamin' from dyin'.
Eyes glazed and mouths open and tongues out and swollen,
I walked past small babes in the dirt lyin’ cryin',
Them needin' their milk from dead mothers' breasts empty',
Some walking, on fire, live skin black and burning,
A hell where it's cruelty to not kill the children.
So hard was the rain that did fall.
The orders were given to get busy killin',
We picked up our guns and we asked God to Bless us,
The rockets were falling and napalm was bloomin',
The trees and the killers start flyin’ in pieces,
The training took over, I killed in numb stupor.
My body was working; my mind wasn't there.
The soldier was wounded and too tired to fight me,
I sat down beside him and gave him my rifle,
He raised it and smiled as he pulled on the trigger,
His head blew wide open and stopped all the smilin',
And hard, hard was the rain that did fall.
I walked on along as I cried in my laughin'.
"And where are the others?" (the Captain that found me),
His clean and iron'd uniform said where he’d been.
My brothers are gone with the orders we followed,
We killed and were killed and now here I am diggin',
Keep diggin' I will 'til I'm home where she's waitin'.
Or fall into Hell and the claws of your Satan.
I see where you been, my blue-eyed son.
I see what you done, my darlin' young one.
I see why you stare with your dead, wet and blue eyes,
You done what they ordered, you acted their lies.
Who ordered them gen'rals to order such sin?
The sinners are saints and the saints always win.
And so hard, hard, hard are the rains yet to fall.
(Thanks, Bobby. Hope you don't mind.)