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Well I come from the rural |
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MidwestIt's the land |
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I love more than all the rest |
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It's the place |
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I know and understand |
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Like a false-front building |
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Like the back of my hand |
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And the men |
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I knew when |
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I was coming up |
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Were sober as coffee in a |
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Styrofoam cup |
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There were |
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Earls and |
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Rays, Harlans and |
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RoysThey were full-grown men |
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They were barbed wire boys |
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They raised grain and cattle on the treeless fields |
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Sat at the head of the table and prayed before meals |
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Prayed an |
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Our Father and that was enough |
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Pray more than that and you couldn't stay tough |
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Tough as the busted thumbnails on the weathered hands |
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They worked the gold plate off their wedding bands |
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And they never complained, no they never made noise |
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And they never left home |
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These barbed wire boys' |
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Cos their wildest dreams were all fenced in |
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By the weight of family, by the feeling of sin |
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That'll prick your skin at the slightest touch |
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If you reach too far, if you feel too much |
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So their deepest hopes never were expressed |
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Just beat like bird's wings in the cage of their chest |
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All the restless longings, all the secret joys |
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That never were set free |
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In the barbed wire boys |
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And now one by one they're departing this earth |
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And it's clear to me now 'xactly what they're worth |
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Oh they were just like |
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Atlas holding up the sky |
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You never heard him speak, you never saw him cry |
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But where do the tears go, that you never shed |
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Where do the words go, that you never said |
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Well there's a blink of the eye, there's a catch in the voice |
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That is the unsung song |
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Of the barbed wire boys |