He was standing in the rubble of an old farmhouse outside Birmingham When some on the scene reporter stuck a camera in the face of that old man He said "tell the folks please mister, what are you gonna do Now that this twister has taken all that's dear to you" The old man just smiled and said "boy let me tell you something, this ain't nothing" He said I lost my daddy, when I was eight years old, That cave-in at the Kincaid mine left a big old hole, And I lost my baby brother, my best friend and my left hand In a no win situation in a place called Vietnam And last year I watched my loving wife, of fifty years waste away and die And I held her hand til her heart of gold stopped pumping, So this ain't nothin' He said I learned at an early age, There's things that matter and there's things that don't So if you're waiting here for me to cry, I hate to disappoint you boy, but I won't Then he reached down in the rubble and picked up a photograph Wiped the dirt off of it with the hand that he still had He put it to his lips and said man she was something But this ain't nothin' He said I lost my daddy, when I was eight years old, That cave-in at the Kincaid mine left a big old hole, And I lost my baby brother, my best friend and my left hand In a no win situation in a place called Vietnam And last year I watched my loving wife, of fifty years waste away and die We were holding hands when her heart of gold stopped pumping So this ain't nothin' This ain't nothin' time won't erase And this ain't nothin' money can't replace He said you sit and watch your loving wife of fifty years fighting for her life Then you hold her hand til her heart of gold stops pumping Yeah boy that's something, So this ain't nothin' Yeah this ain't nothin'