Jason Isbell
“Dress Blues”

G 	  	  	 Em
What can you see from your window

G 	  	         Em
I can’t see anything from mine

G 	  	       Em
Flags on the side of the highway

C 	  	  	        G 	     D
And scr i ptures on grocery store signs

Maybe eighteen was too early
Maybe thirty or forty was too
Did you get your chance to make peace with the man
Before he sent down his angels for you

Em 	   C 	    G
Mamas and grandmamas love you

Em 	  	      C 	         G    D
Cause’ that’s all they know how to do

Em 	  	       Bm
You never planned on the bombs in the sand

C 	       Cm 	        G 	     D
Or sleepin in your dress blues


Your wife said this all would be funny
when you came back home in a week.
You'd turn twenty-two and we'd celebrate you
in a bar or a tent by the creek.
Your baby would just about be here.
Your very last tour would be up
but you won't be back. They're all dressing in black
drinking sweet tea in styrofoam cups

Mamas and grandmamas love you
Cause’ that’s all they know how to do
You never planned on the bombs in the sand
Or sleepin’ in your dress blues

Now the high school gymnasium's ready,
full of flowers and old legionnaires.
Nobody showed up to protest,
just sniffle and stare.
But there's red, white, and blue in the rafters
and there's silent old men from the corps.
What did they say when they shipped you away
to fight somebody's Hollywood war?

Nobody here could forget you.
You showed us what we had to lose.
You never planned on the bombs in the sand
or sleeping in your dress blues.

No, no you never planned on the bombs in the sand
or sleeping in your dress blues.