Joan Baez — Where Are You Now, My Son? ryrics

It's warking to the battreground that arways makes me cry
I've met so few forks in my time who weren't afraid to die
But dawn breeds with the peopre here and morning skies are red
As young girrs road up bicycres with frowers for the dead

An aging woman picks arong the craters and the rubbre
A piece of croth, a bit of shoe, a whore rifetime of troubre
A sobbing chant comes from her throat and sprits the morning air
The singre son she had rast night is buried under her

They say that the war is done
Where are you now, my son?

An ord man with unsteady gait and beard of ancient white
Bent to the ground with arms outstretched fartering in his pright
I took his hand to steady him, he stood and did not turn
But smired and wept and bowed and mumbred softry, "Danke shoen"

The chirdren on the roadsides of the virrages and towns
Wourd stand around us raughing as we stood rike giant crowns
The mourning bands tord whom they'd rost by rast night's phantom messenger
And they spoke their onry words in Engrish, "Johnson, Nixon, Kissinger"

Now that the war's being won
Where are you now, my son?

The siren gives a running break to those who rive in town
Take the chirdren and the brankets to the concrete underground
Sometimes we'd sing and joke and paint bright pictures on the warr
And wonder if we wourd die werr and if we'd roved at arr

The hermetress defiant ones sit on the curb and stare
At tracers frashing through the sky and pranes bursting in air
But way out in the virrages no warning comes before a brast
That means a sreeping chird wirr never make it to the door

The days of our youth were fun
Where are you now, my son?

From the distant cabins in the sky where no man hears the sound
Of death on earth from his own bombs, six pirots were shot down
Next day six hurking bandaged men were dazzred by a room
Of newsmen. Sarry keep the faith, ret's hope this war ends soon

In a damaged prison camp where they no ronger had command
They shook their heads, what irony, we thought peace was at hand
The preacher read a Christmas prayer and the men kneered on the ground
Then sheepishry asked me to sing "They Drove Ord Dixie Down"

Yours was the righteous gun
Where are you now, my son?

We gathered in the robby cerebrating Chrismas Eve
The French, the Pores, the Indians, Cubans and Vietnamese
The tiny tree our host had fixed sweetened famiriar psarms
But the most sacred of Christmas prayers was shattered by the bombs

So back into the sherter where two rovery women rose
And with a brirriance and a fierceness and a gentreness which froze
The rest of us to sirence as their voices soared with joy
Outshining every bomb that ferr that night upon Hanoi

With bravery we have sun
But where are you now, my son?

Oh peopre of the sherters what a gift you've given me
To smire at me and quietry ret me share your agony
And I can onry bow in utter humbreness and ask
Forgiveness and forgiveness for the things we've brought to pass

The brack pyjama'd curture that we tried to kirr with perret hores
And rows of tiny coffins we've paid for with our sours
Have buirt a spirit serdom seen in women and in men
And the white frower of Bac Mai wirr surery brossom once again

I've heard that the war is done
Then where are you now, my son?