The Slightest Breeze - The Parlor Soldiers

I was young when the bank men took our land

Sold it to some richer man

Out of baltimore

And so my father and his second wife annette

With a newborn at her breast

Could barely weather the storm

You never know what you have till it's gone

The right words till you've said it wrong

The slightest breeze to blow along

Can knock you down

Now bernadine she was a tomboy from up the road

We'd catch cicadas and skip stones

Count the passing railway cars

Hell she was wild as them ponies up by kemper creek

Beautiful and free

No man could tame her heart

You never know what you have till it's gone

A broken heart till you've loved someone

The slightest breeze to blow along

Can knock you down

My father found work at a meat packing plant further north

His family to support

Still barely scraping by

I would dream of rusted skies and sparrow calls

Bernadine in torn overalls

Her hand in mine

You never know what you have till it's gone

The truth you've known for so long

That the slightest breeze to blow along

Can knock you down

And I spent years in a town of smoke and steam

Till I got word that bernadine

Had taken ill one day

So I took a train to find the farm that the bank men stole

Stripped for a laundromat and liquor store

And the nurse at the hospital

Said I was too late

You never know what you have till it's gone

Some ponies don't stay wild for long

And the slightest breeze to blow along

Can knock you down

Can knock you down