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SOMEBODY'S SON (2007)


Man, that's a lot of rocks, isn't it boys?
Thousands and thousands years old
Greeks and Etruscans, their day in the sun
Crumbled in dust and mold

Take my hand, let's see the mummies
Rush past the broken cups
Looking for action, no time for thinking
Don't stop to look up
Stop to look up

Hey, come on back, here, look at this, boys
You miss things you go too fast
Somebody's son in a fetal position
Decaying behind the glass

Take my hand, look at what happens
History's never done
Civilizations, they leave behind statues
And somebody's son
Somebody's son

There's a cry in the night, a cry in the night
Sometimes a little whimper
A little pain unexplained

But then they say
Say he's OK, it's a beautiful day
Finally
But who cares, I sure don’t care
How much it rained

Nobody likes to see tubes and things sticking out of their flesh and blood
Nobody likes to think about fowers being nipped in the bud

Then they say he's okay
It's a beautiful day
It's a beautiful, beautiful day

(music break)

Take my hand, let's get some ice cream
Tomorrow always comes
Don't run ahead, stay where I can see you
You're somebody's son
Somebody's son

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I had been listening to Paul Simon’s latest CD and started thinking in his kind of storytelling.

A man and his two sons are visiting a museum of antiquities. One of his sons was recently in the hospital, but is all right now. They see a mummified boy behind glass.

All the above actually happened, but I decided to pull them all together into a song. We know that we’re all going to be dust eventually, but we fret about the small hurts we endure in our lives anyway.

I admire Simon’s writing and figured I’d learn something by trying to capture his style.

This is a collaboration with a new partner, Billy Playle, who found the lyric on Musicians Collaboration.

crumpled paper