Music Can Do That: Put your rifle down

A cry for peace on all fronts

*Something a little different today, in the light of the continuing reign of the rifle. My metaphor is that the person with Alzheimer’s is continually bombarded in a similar manner, and that “music can do that for you.”

Have You Ever?

H. W. Bryce

Have you ever seen a grown man cry?
A man distraught and don’t know why
Life can hurt so hard he want to die
’Cause he thinks his life has been a lie?
Have ya?

Well turn the music on because
Music salves the bitter tears.
Music’ll carry you through the years
And lift you up to carry on.
Music can do that
For ya.

I need to hear that music now,
Play it for me, play it now,
I need to hear the farmer’s plow
Put your bullets down my man,
They will only make you die.
Put your bullets down right now,
They will make your widow cry.

They will make your children bitter
And they will shoot and they will die,
And sad the music that will play
As you kneel and as you pray.
Listen to the music.
Won’t ya?

But listen to the music, man,
Music can help to heal the holes
That bullets yield when bullets deal
In pain and sorrow for you to feel.
Listen to the music.

Music talks and it can tell
In whispers what your voice would yell,
Put your rifle down my man,
There’s no need to kill at all.
Listen to the music,
Won’t ya?

Have you ever heard a widow cry?
Have you ever wondered why
Such bitterness controls the world,
Why we dance in such a whirl?
Have ya?

Well instead, try listening to
The song the children sing,
They sing it for their missing ones
Who died by bullet without a song.
Listen to the music.

Listen to the children’s song,
Listen to the children sing,
And if that don’t ring right true
You are a hard-hearted thing.
The children sing it true.
Don’t they?

Have you ever heard a lifer cry?
He’s rued each cruel act and lie.
For sure he does not want to die;
For once his prayer is not a lie.
Is it?

So he will kneel and he will pray
And he will sing a hymn to stay,
And if you hear his plaintive cries,
You will join his choir of sighs,
’Cause music will do that
To ya.

Have you ever seen a mother cry
Bitter tears for one who died
At the barrel of a gun?
No one here has ever won
When bullets fly,
Have they?

Have you ever heard the heavens cry?
They cry for all of those who die
Needlessly when bullets fly.
Bullets only make you die,
Don’t they?

So won’t you put your rifle down
Trade it for song and sing it down
’Cause music soothes the savage breast,
And won’t you work for peace and rest?
Well won’t ya?

Have you ever heard a vet’ran cry?
Have you heard him ask God why?
And have your heard him once decry
All his sins that cloud his sky?
Well have ya?

Have you ever heard policemen cry?
He cried until his tears ran dry
For all of those he couldn’t save
And all the ones the bullets crave.
Well have ya?

And have you heard the fireman cry?
His tears could make the fire die.
Bullet powder fired the blaze
That left a city in a daze—
Listen to the music.

Have you ever seen a killer cry
Because he’s killed and wants to die?
Have you ever heard of such a thing:
A dying crow with a broken wing.
Well have ya?

Have you ever heard a small child crying
At his mother’s side as she lay dying,
Shot by a bullet bought to kill
By an angry soul with a twisted will?
Well, have ya?

Music can break or heal your heart,
Music and you should never part,
Play the music, play it now,
Make my peace, make bullets bow.
I need to hear that music now,
Play it for me, play it now,
I need to hear the farmer’s plow,
Put your bullets down,
They only make you die.
Don’t they?

CREDITS: Mourning man by H. W. Bryce;
Crying eye in the sky: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/264586546829138685/
Music: https://pixabay.com/en/music-guitar-violin-treble-clef-748118/
CC0 Public Domain  Free for commercial use  No attribution required ;
All others from Clip Art; links led nowhere.