Spark It Up!!!: Remember the Homeless Vets

I am a big Blue Highway fan. The new CD "Through the Windows of a Train" is one of their best yet. Recorded in Big Stone Gap at Maaggards, the following song discusses a homeless vet...homeless in many ways. Click here to listen along.

Homeless Man
(Wayne Taylor/Forty WAT Music, BMI)

They called him Skeet, his name was Bill
Corporal William Howard Campbell,
they never knew and never will
He did his time with the 101
They took a simple country boy
and taught him how to use a gun
After four long years in service,
two tours in Vietnam
The country that he served so well
doesn't seem to give a damn
That he's a homeless man

He has a son, lives in L.A.
He hasn't spoke to him in twenty years,
he just don't know what to say
He had a loving wife, she was his right hand
Till the nightmares and the memories
became more that she could stand
Now he has everything he owns
in a worn-out shopping cart
He's never begged for anything,
he just doesn't have the heart
He's just a homeless man

Now in this land of plenty
where so many have it all,
He sleeps in an alley half a block from city hall

They found him there one cold November night
Though he'd won so many battles,
this time he'd lost the fight
No one seemed to care that he was gone
They laid him in a pauper's grave
with a tiny little stone
As a young man and his mother
sat alone and cried,
Holding the Silver Star medallion
someone found there by his side
He was a homeless man

He was just a homeless man

This is the best overall new bluegrass release so far this year. They hit hard with the above song and a classic called Two Soldiers

"We're the two soldiers no one wants to see
In a plain black sedan
rolling slowly down the street
Past the toys and the bikes
beneath the maple trees
Where fading yellow ribbons
wave gently in the breeze
A loved one's in a better place
They won't be back no more
Now there's two soldiers at the door"

Check this CD out.