JPF Home Page Forums Lyric and MP3 Feedback MP3 Feedback Forum Arizona (Thanks Jan Petter!)

Edit (2/13) - Jan Petter was kind enough master the song for me and provide me the track - which I've replaced the former version with. Thanks so much, Jan - you can really hear everything a whole lot better!


I'm putting together a collection of some of my newer folky stuff and am adding to it what I consider to be the best of some of my older stuff. Problem is the vocals don't really match - back then I was doing everything I could do disguise and/or hide my voice. Now I just live with it.

I've posted this song before but have just redone the vocals. I doubt I'll change anything in the lyric or arrangement at this point. But I would be interested in hearing what folks think of the mix or if there are any glaring problems anywhere.

I wrote this after my wife and I spent a day at Pearl Harbor. What a gut-wretching experience....

Arizona is here:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=377550&songID=8748177

I'll stick the lyric below if anyone wants to read along. Thanks!

Scott




Arizona
(c) 2007 by S.W. Campbell

We heard the planes just before eight bells
And December seventh just went to hell
When a bomb hit our forward magazine
It blew me off the deck into the burning sea
Some boys on the dock pulled me from harm
And they pulled the skin clean off my arms
In the space of nine minutes my ship was gone
It took twelve hundred of my brothers along

Oh Arizona, Arizona
One day I’ll come back to you

I recovered in time to join the war
And I never forgot who I was fighting for
But even when the Missouri left Tokyo Bay
I didn’t feel my debt was paid
I was discharged home and found my wife
Someone else to save my life
She’d hold onto me with all her might
When my brothers’ screams woke me at night

Oh Arizona, Arizona
One day I’ll return to you

I’m an old man now, ninety three
Twenty people trace their name to me
I’ve pulled my weight with change to spend
But I never stood the world on end
For over sixty years I’ve tried
While living an ordinary life
To find the answer I never got
Why was I spared when they were not?

Doc tells me I got a year, no more
Then they’ll slide my urn into turret four
When I meet my brothers on the other side
I got a list of things for them that I’ll describe
Like pouring your son his first beer
Watching your wife grow more beautiful with each year
The smell of cut grass around your first home
And how it feels the day you pay off that loan
Showing your grandson how to hit a ball
Seeing the Red Sox finally take it all
Teaching your granddaughter to tie her shoe
Little things but they’ll do

Oh Arizona, Arizona
Won’t be long till I come back to you
No it won’t be long till I come back to you