Story Behind The Song

When I was just about to leave the Army after West Point, Flight School, Air Cav, 82nd Airborne, 9 years all told, I was tasked to go and tell a woman that her husband had been killed in the line of duty. It was, perhaps, the most difficult and enlighten

Song Description

An experience I had while serving in the Army...

Lyrics

Spoken introduction:
This is a song that I wrote about a time when I was in the United States Army, and I got a phone call at work one day telling me to put on my class A's, get in a government car, and rush on down to Florida to tell this woman that her husband had died. And they handed me my script and told me to memorize it on the way down. And it's called The Messenger.

Verse 1:
Driving South
Don't care where I go
So long as it's not straight
To your house
A home I've never been before
Nor ever will again
And if you only knew
As I stand before you
And read from memory
Your country thanks you
And your daughter too
And that's why they sent me

Pre-chorus:
But I'm not
No I'm not
Prepared for this
How about you
And I can't believe
That you're not pissed
As this young punk kid
In Army greens
Recites his lines
From a script unseen
That he memorized
Just for this one big scene
To tell you
The bad news
And I wish you knew
That it broke my heart too

Chorus
And I don't want to be
The Messenger
Don't want to be
The Messenger no more...

Verse 2:
Well you know I hoped
And prayed as I drove
That I might perform well
But the tears they choked
And clogged my throat
As my walls fell
And in the end there we were
Outside your front door
A widow and a little boy
Who knows he can't fake this
So just read from the script
Just like you signed you would

Pre-Chorus
Chorus