Sunday, August 01, 2004

Blinded with rain in the country
Blinded with rain in the town
Blinded with rain in the battlefield
Black hail pouring down
Oh the rainstorm chills me
Chills me right to the bone
Fills my heart with [rainfall]
Out there in the dark alone

Haunted with voices from yesterday
Haunted with voices that sing
Haunted with voices that slip away
Leave only the hope that they bring
Oh the voices show me
Things nobody can see
Oh the voices tell me
What hard work it is to be free
Chorus-
Oh my darling Hattie-Iowa’s far away-Don’t forsake me for another-Hold on for one more day

Selling my heart down the river
Selling my heart on the sand
Selling my heart to Arkansas
At the Company A command
Oh the heart tells slowly
To the edge of the living line
Voices singing holy
Cut free of the prison of time

Eighteen hundred and sixty four
Cloud in the eye of the storm
Sitting here wondering what for
In a tattered blue uniform
Oh the heart grows weary
Of battles that never end
Hope this war is settled
Before there’s nothing to defend

If they re-elect Abe Lincoln
Sooner the war will end
Every man in Company A
Is voting for him again

General Holmes and Marmaduke
Attacked July the fourth
Buried four hundred of their dead
Only forty four from the north

Oh my darling Hattie
I’d give the world to be
Next to you and those I love
Back in Monroe County

Oh my darling HattieIowa’s so far away-Don’t forsake me for another-I will return some day ….
When the war is over
No matter which side prevails
When the war is over
No matter which side fails

Robert Hunter