It's late July, crowds roll by your town.
Your garden is grown.
Blackbird is seen, from the highest tree,
of the stone-bridge [that] leads to the road.
Your daddy is cryin', 'cause mother, she's dyin',
Ain't no cancer, that eats at your soul,
And I'm off to the war, to make damn sure
they don't come 'round here, no more.
[And] Daddy, all right, tells our mother tonight,
"I'm just a garden that grows on the lawn."
The sweet breeze don't blow, like it does back home.
'Cause we're ain't nothin' but bastards and boys.
Son now, all right, your mother died here tonight,
in the garden, the blackbird does fly.
Spoke of Ohio, a cold, breezy dawn,
and a son that's fightin' in the war.
Ain't no exit I see, from this black where I breathe
and the garden, is a thousand miles gone.
Mother just died, with a heart dark as mine,
of the stone-bridge, [that] leads to the road.
[And] Daddy's done cryin', 'cause mother's done dyin'.
oh, the cancer, has eaten her whole.
But I'm stuck in this war, to make damn sure
they don't come, they don't come...
Where the blackbird sang and now lives at her grave.
And the garden has grown itself dry.
If I ever get home, from this terror I've known,
[I'll] go to the garden, go to the garden,
and I'll wait there to die.
