Josh Ritter – Our Fathers War (Guitar)

C                C/B          Am
Came out of arrivals was somethin' in his eyes that wasn't

 F                                   G
there and you'd been waitin' for him   beneath the white florescent

C                  C/B           Am
glare he throws his bags down he picks you up he's spinnin' you

 F                                 G                          C
around holdin' so tightly to you, bet you cannot even make a sound

             C/B              Am
this is your favorite mem'ry, of him polished beautifully,

    F                             G
you thought about it often both reflexively and dutifully

     C             C/B                 Am
you didn't care who he was fighting or who he was fighting for

      F                                   G
only that your father finally come home from your father's war

     C             C/B        Am
now 18 years have passed and we're still in Afghanistan

     G                           F
With IED's and armored HUMVEE's, Burger Kings, quicksand

         C                C/B              Am
and the folks who started up the fight are getting old and dyin'

           G                     F
and it's harder to remember just why the hell we're fighting

         C               C/B               Am
so they wrap the reasons in the flag, show films of 9-11

       G                              F
every Sunday they remind us that all soldiers go to heaven

       C         C/B            Am
is a heaven for Americans, the ones who please the Lord

   G                        F
Remember even Jesus had to fight his father's war

    C               C/B       Am
You meet a man you love, who reminds you of your father

    G                            F
the way he used to be before his outlook got so dark

    C                  C/B           Am
he sweeps you off your feet, carries you across the threshhold

       G                                 F
of a new life then he ships out, you are 22 years old

    C                C/B          Am
he calls you when he can from an undisclosed location

     G                                      F
then somethin' happens and he's sent home, put on medication

    C               C/B          Am
he wakes up every night and an AR15 in his chest

           G                              F
with your head upon his shoulder you can hear your father's war

          C            C/B             Am
but now laser guided missiles, beams, snuff films of their emulation

G                         F
fossil fuel removal architecture runs of radiation

C                  C/B              Am
lines of code all stowed away down deep inside a terabite

    G                       F
an economic serfdom has conferred upon the non-compliant

     C              C/B              Am
you don't have to understand it all, that's okay, no, but it does,

      G                                F
it's hard for souls to comprehend the horrors they come in

               C              C/B              Am
and thus they do their work behind the wall behind a screen, behind the door,

      G                                 F
so they don't see what he saw when it was your father's war

           C            C/B                 Am
so he'll finish off his tour of duty, in an office in Maryland

   G                               F
facilitating drone strikes in the border towns of Pakistan

C                C/B                 Am
this is all he's told you and it's amazing he's said anything

            G                               F
but you've seen it on the cable news, the hospitals and weddings

     C                   C/B                Am
at first you think he'll be alright, he'll come home from work each evenin'

          G                                    F
but he's no longer all love and light, he's silent or he's seethin'

          C                C/B                  Am
and you love him more than anything, but you've seen this all before

        G                              F
and in every way that matters this is still your father's war

          C                C/B         Am
this is still your father's war, it's still your father's father's war

     G                               F
and it's his father's war, and his father before his father's war

     C               C/B              Am
and this is how it's gonna be, right down through generations

         G                      F
war improvement only on it's cruelties with innovation

C                  C/B                  Am
lay the dead, and talk to dead, like flowers on cut roses

    G                                     F
improve the weak, and take revenge, and slaughter without notice

          C            C/B                    Am
and have everything we want, and with what's left we'll wipe the floor

     G                         F
so maybe it's just easier to fight our father's war