Barbed Wire Boys - Claire Lynch

Well I come from the rural Midwest

It’s the land I love more than all the rest

It’s the place I know and understand

Like a false-front building

Like the back of my hand

And the men I knew when I was coming up

Were sober as coffee in a Styrofoam cup

There were Earls and Rays, Harlans and Roys

They were full-grown men

They were barbed wire boys

They raised grain and cattle on the treeless fields

Sat at the head of the table and prayed before meals

Prayed an Our Father and that was enough

Pray more than that and you couldn’t stay tough

Tough as the busted thumbnails on the weathered hands

They worked the gold plate off their wedding bands

And they never complained, no they never made noise

And they never left home

These barbed wire boys

'Cos their wildest dreams were all fenced in

By the weight of family, by the feeling of sin

That’ll prick your skin at the slightest touch

If you reach too far, if you feel too much

So their deepest hopes never were expressed

Just beat like bird’s wings in the cage of their chest

All the restless longings, all the secret joys

That never were set free

In the barbed wire boys

And now one by one they’re departing this earth

And it’s clear to me now 'xactly what they’re worth

Oh they were just like Atlas holding up the sky

You never heard him speak, you never saw him cry

But where do the tears go, that you never shed

Where do the words go, that you never said

Well there’s a blink of the eye, there’s a catch in the voice

That is the unsung song

Of the barbed wire boys