Lost Brother (song lyrics)

These are the lyrics of a song I wrote over a year ago.  When I sing it, I set it to a slow country and western tune, similar to the one for the song D-I-V-O-R-C-E that was performed by Tammy Wynette.  (It was partly that song that gave me the idea for this one.)  It’s a song about a particular type of bereavement, and regret. The first chorus has alternative versions, for US and British audiences, respectively.

–

LOST BROTHER

My baby girl is three years old,
My eyes, her mummy’s hair.
She doesn’t know, must not be told
’bout her brother, who isn’t there.

Her mum and I, we often cry,
’bout the days we met, in school
And we were blessed with a baby boy,
Who’s daddy was a fool.

She’s brought us joy, but I have cried.
My heart has been so torn
Because our son, her brother, died
Before our girl was born.

–

First Chorus

EITHER                                                        

He didn’t live long.
He’d done no wrong.
We thought he’d have to go.
Oh how I wish I’d never heard
Of folks called Wade and Roe.

OR                                                                     

He didn’t live long.
He’d done no wrong.
To us he didn’t seem real.
Oh how I wish he’d never been born …
… that MP, David Steel.

–

She’s brought us joy, but I feel pain,
For the brother she’ll never see.
I weep with shame that our son was slain.
Who killed him?  It was me.

I’d hold my son like I hold his sister
If I had my time again.
I wish we’d stopped that A B O
R T I O N.

–

Second chorus

He didn’t live long.
He’d done no wrong.
They tore him limb from limb.
No matter how many more children I have,
They’ll all remind me of him.

–

(c) copyright John Allman MMXI

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Postscript added at 2:10 a.m. on 8th May 2015, during the count of the votes cast in yesterday’s election: Here too, for good measure, the lyrics of a blues song I wrote about eleven years before I wrote Lost Brother.  Not a clichéd 12 bar blues, in this case.  Chords for each 6/8 bar in C would be

C C E E

Am Am F#dim F#dim

C Am D9 D9 G (instrumental) Ab7 G [G+F+B’+Eb’+A” – a made-up sus-chord of my own, maybe properly called G7aug9?]

C C E E

Am Am F#dim F#dim

C Am D7 G6 C D9 G Ab7 G …

F6 F6 F#dim F#dim

C6 C Fmaj7 C

D D6 D6 D

G G Ab7 G …