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Also with Mark Filler on percussion

lyrics

Let a Bird Go Free
Old man told the story of a bird with a broken wing.
How he picked it up and he held it. Hoped to hear it sing.
Taped the wing till it healed up and the bird could fly again.
He held her up, she spread her wings. He tossed her up and
Let a bird go free. Let a bird go free.

Young boy on a ladder, still he could not see.
Said, “I don’t understand why you let ‘er go
Just as pretty as can be.” Old man shook his head,
said, “Son, if you could fly, you could see.”
Let a bird go free

Daedelus and Icarus put feathers on their arms,
Icarus got careless and he flew too near the sun,
Daedelus screamed out, “Must I be the only one?
I can fly just like an eagle, while my son sinks like a stone”

My old man was a flyboy from the age of seventeen
And he barnstormed in a biplane. And he climbed beneath that wing
Now he rises slowly, He flies only in his dreams
“Take me to an airfield; let me fly in that machine.”

High up in the fir tree the Jaybird clowns around.
Down below the branches the nuthatch sings along.
Way down in the lowlands the varied Thrush moves on.
Goodbye birds of winter I shall miss your lovely song

The birds all held a campfire, the Raven served the tea
The mockingbird stopped mocking and he cried and tried to sing
The whippoorwill stayed up all night shouting from his tree,
“Let a bird go free. Let a bird go free.”
© John W. McClure, 1980, 2010

credits

from Cowboys On The Skyline, released August 1, 2011
J.W. McClure

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all rights reserved

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J.W. McClure Seattle, Washington

J.W. McClure lives in Stanwood, Washington. This is a career restarted for me. In the 1970’s I was often an opening act at the Washington D.C. clubs, The Cellar Door and The Childe Harold for Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk, Tom Rush and many well known bands. In the 1980’s I returned to Washington to do folk music, satire and stand-up comedy before getting swamped by family and other work. ... more

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