Jackson Petty Lyrics

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