May 24, 1972

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About this song

country folk, singer-songwriter, acoustic folk

Lyrics

[Spoken intro, dry, over a single guitar chord]
Heidelberg, West Germany. May twenty-fourth, nineteen seventy-two.
Campbell Barracks. Six o'clock in the evening.
This one's for Captain Bonner, US Army, and his friend Ronald Woodward.
And for the kids in left field.

[Verse 1 - Male Baritone, conversational]
We had just started the T-ball game
The grass was warm and I was eight years old
I was out in left field by the back of the building
We hadn't had a single batter at the plate

[Verse 2]
Then the world stood up and hit me in the back
And the ground came up and met me where I fell
I turned around and there was a mushroom cloud above me
Slow and gray and the size of a house

[Chorus]
And it was a thing. It happened.
Bad things happened, but not to me.
The grown-ups were out of their minds with fear
And the kids in left field were just kids in left field

[Verse 3]
Some father had jumped a ten-foot fence
And was running toward the movie theater wall
His kid was in there watching a film
And the second bomb had gone off there too

[Verse 4]
They called us in. They didn't say much.
And the dads were on the phone and the moms put on a face
And one of the older kids said *fifty-fifty*
*Fifty-fifty odds of making twenty.* And we agreed.

[Chorus]
And it was a thing. It happened.
Bad things happened, but not to me.
The grown-ups were out of their minds with fear
And the kids in left field were just kids in left field

[Verse 5]
The next week or the week after we went back
Somebody hit a ball. Somebody caught it.
The dads got quieter at the dinner table
And the gates were gates from then on

[Bridge - Slower, just voice and guitar]
I wasn't traumatized. I wonder about that.
I think it's because no one told me I should be.
There wasn't a word for it yet. There wasn't a circle.
There was just the world, and the world had bombs in it sometimes.

[Final Chorus - With light harmony]
And it was a thing. It happened.
Bad things happened, but not to me.
The grown-ups were out of their minds with fear
And the kids in left field were just kids in left field

[Outro - Spoken, dry, over fading guitar]
We left Germany in August.
My parents never spoke of it again.
My sister was almost two. She doesn't remember.
My brother does. He was there too.
And I was in left field. Eight years old. At six o'clock or so.

[End]

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