Shadows5

This is one of the songs I wrote lately. It has been recorded in my home studio with me playing a 12 string and 6 string. I am not happy with the recording at this time and hope to do a new recording next week and add the piano part but please let me know what you think of the lyrics and the story.

Thanks, Shadows5






He slept out on the streets

For better than 15 years

Hopelessly lost in a bottle

Trying to make the memories fade away

His face void of expression

His heart an empty shell

He had nothing else worth losing

He had only his story to tell

I met him outside a liquor store

He was to proud to beg for change

I went in and bought him a bottle

I wanted to know what made him this way

He said his name was William

And he hadn’t always been like this

He once had a wife and family

Nice house and a couple of kids

Did three tours of duty

Fighting in a foreign land

And no matter how hard he tried

He came back a changed man

Drowning himself in a bottle

Fighting a battle he could not win

Got in a bit of trouble

Ended up in the pen

His wife up and left him

Took the boys and was gone for good

Hadn’t seen them in 25 years

Didn’t know if he would if he could

I told him I had lost my father

When I was very young

My mother told me he lost his life

At the wrong end of a gun

Now William lives under the bridge

With an old dog he calls shoe

He just sits and drinks the days away

Since he has nothing better to do

I spent a lot of time with William that year

Sitting under that dirty old bridge

We shared some laughs

Told stories of our past

And shed a few hard tears

I offered William to come stay with me

Since I was living all alone

He just looked at me with a tear in his eye

And said no, this is where I belong

INSTRUMENTAL

Early one Sunday morning

I heard the news on my T.V.

They said they had found a vagrant

Deceased on 16th street

I ran all the way to the bridge

Hoping it wasn’t true

But lying right where William used to sit

Was only his old dog Shoe

I sat and buried my face in my hands

And cried like a little child

Shoe came over and laid his head in my lap

To comfort me for awhile

When I got up to leave

I told Shoe to come along

He could come live at my home

Since William now was gone

He began to bark and lead me

To a small opening in the rocks

I reached inside and in my hand

I felt an old metal box

From Shoes old dirty collar

Hung a rusty lock box key

He lowered his head, shook his collar around

And gave it to me

I opened the box and peered inside

At some letters and medals from the war

But underneath there was an old envelope

That held so much more

I removed an old tattered photograph

And held it in my hand

My knees nearly buckled

I could barely stand

I sat on the ground beside his old dog

And through tear filled eyes could see

The little boy sitting on Williams lap

That little boy was me


He said his name was William



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