The Grave

Song The Grave
Artist Don McLean
Album American Pie

Lyrics

[00:00.37] The grave that they dug him had flowers
[00:05.81] Gathered from the hillsides in bright summer colors,
[00:11.37] And the brown earth bleached white at the edge of his gravestone.
[00:16.87] He's gone.
[00:29.19] When the wars of our nation did beckon,
[00:33.75] A man barely twenty did answer the calling.
[00:38.31] Proud of the trust that he placed in our nation,
[00:42.66] He's gone,
[00:45.64] But Eternity knows him, and it knows what we've done.
[00:55.39] And the rain fell like pearls on the leaves of the flowers
[01:03.00] Leaving brown, muddy clay where the earth had been dry.
[01:09.84] And deep in the trench he waited for hours,
[01:16.18] As he held to his rifle and prayed not to die.
[01:24.74] But the silence of night was shattered by fire
[01:30.66] As guns and grenades blasted sharp through the air.
[01:37.20] And one after another his comrades were slaughtered.
[01:42.93] In morgue of Marines, alone standing there.
[01:50.09] He crouched ever lower, ever lower with fear.
[01:57.06] They can't let me die! The can't let me die here!
[02:00.98] I'll cover myself with the mud and the earth.
[02:06.72] I'll cover myself! I know I'm not brave!
[02:13.28] The earth! the earth! the earth is my grave.
[02:49.78] The grave that they dug him had flowers
[02:55.29] Gathered from the hillsides in bright summer colors,
[03:00.69] And the brown earth bleached white at the edge of his gravestone.
[03:08.63] He's gone.