The sun comes up like the sky is bleeding
Then it's all soaked up into the corn
A Missouri dawn the Year of Our Lord
Eighteen sixty four
Yesterday the soldiers showed up
At the Taylor place just down the road
They took three cows and all the horses
And the Taylor boy thirteen years old
Lie down in the corn, Jackson Petty
Do like your father told you to
Jackson Petty wakes from a dream of summer
Fifty years ago but fresh in his mind
When the horses hooves beat the field to ruin
But the soldiers did not find him
When they rode away the barn was burning
And his father laid out in the sun
He did not forget the sound of his own scream
He did not forget what war had done
Lie down in the corn, Jackson Petty
Do like your father told you to
For the soldiers will come
Taking every father's son
And children bleed just like the grown men do
But that was long ago - now it's nineteen fifteen
And the call goes out to fight the Hun
And in the fever dream Jackson saw the soldiers
Come for his own son
The vision drives him to his pistol
Crazy from the wound that never healed
Out into the corn - then a shot rings out
And Jackson lies down in the field
Lie down in the corn, Jackson Petty
Do like your father told you to
For the soldiers will come
Taking every father's son
And fathers bleed just like their children do