Bombs and Hell-fire

Another song I wrote for my friend's newgrass band. It's my homage to the old WWI trench songs. I submitted this one for a contest.

 

(Chorus)

When this war is over no more soldiering for me

I’ll miss the friends I made, this ragtime infantry

Now I count my fallen comrades in the holes, 2’s and 3’s

When I get my civy clothes on, oh so happy I will be

 

I was just twenty-one, when they gave me my gun

Sent me on the long road to Argonne paved with blood

The whole battalion’s hanging on barbed wire

Watching the skies light up with bombs and hell-fire

 

I miss my friends back home and the games we would play

I would give anything to see my darling Ellie May

But there are no games for me, this boy now a man

I guess for me Uncle Sam had other plans

 

And I can still remember that terrible day

The rain of artillery and the storm clouds of bombs

I just pray those bullets find another home

As I hear the men around me whisper and moan

 

When this war is over no more soldiering for me

I’ll miss the friends I made, this ragtime infantry

Now I count my fallen comrades in the holes, 2’s and 3’s

When I get my civy clothes on, oh so happy I will be

 

I survived another day, but how many more

I see the limbs wash up on some forgotten shore

And if there is a hell well I know I’ve been there

I’ve seen enough; more than one man should bear

 

When I finally get word that Ellie May left me

She waited a year, how angry could I be

I just thought when she said love eternally

That forever would have been a little longer

 

Now they send us home all broken and battered

These forgotten men who are damned to remember

The terrible days, unrelenting nights

I have realized there are worse fates than dying

 

This war is over no more soldiering for me

I miss the friends I made, our ragtime infantry

I still count my fallen comrades in the holes, 2’s and 3’s

I got my civy clothes on, but no partying for me