Lyrics

One Day On The Fields Of France
(Greg Tamblyn, Lance Cowan)

One day on the fields of France, some soldiers went to war
I was among those brave young men, who’d never killed before
And when the battle was over, I found blood on my hands
And that night I wrote a letter and tried to understand

Dear Hanna Roenecke, my army holds a victory tonight
But I am haunted by the memory of one young foe as he died
And in his hand he held a picture of someone that he loved
And on the back the writing told me that I had killed your son

And he seemed to be about my age
Too young to feel life end
In some other time and place
We might have been friends
And the reason I’m writing, as strange as it may seem
Is to ask if you could ever somehow forgive me

Months have passed now since I shipped home, today a letter came
I felt my fingers trembling, as I read the sender’s name
And as I pulled the letter open my heart filled up with fear
Then as I read the words she’d written, I blurred them with my tears

Dear sir, she wrote to me, my son was the source of all my joy.
And my heart breaks each time I think I’ll never see my boy
And just as you cannot know how I feel to lose my only son
I cannot imagine how it feels to take the life of someone

But if you could come here to my home
And let me see your face
Spend a few hours here with me
Take my young man’s place
Then I think that we might better know, this pain that’s shared between us two
And then I think that I could let him go, and somehow forgive you

It’s what we all were taught so long ago
So I will forgive you

© 1994 Ramblin' Tamblyn Music BMI