songs of buddy don: For the Duration

as ye know, twuz 60 year ago this verr day that the furst atomick bomb wuz dropped on hiroshima. twuz truly the event that changed everthang.

on that cee dee by them bohemian hillbillies name of once removed thays a song that wuz writ bout how the atomick bomb cum to be. not only did it change everthang in the worl, it also changed part of appalachia ferever by ploppin down the lil town of oak ridge, tennessee, rite smack dab in the middle of it. the idee wuz how twuz too remote to be discuverd n ifn thay wuz a acksident, twernt lackly to kill too minny folk. fack is, twuz a lucky thang fer us on a counta how it meant we gut a better educayshun than we lackly wooda gut otherwise.

but thars also that bomb n whut droppin it meant. agin, twuz a bit of selfish luck fer us on a counta how we probly woodnta been here ifn it hadnt been dropped. corse, thays minny more folks that wuz obliterayted whenever it wuz dropped. so whenever i thank much bout that bomb, tiz hard to know how to feel. bof my daddy n miz bds wuz sined up fer the durayshun of that war. my daddy wuz a marine in the pacifick n part of the force that wuz a'fixin to invade japan. so the chantses wuz good that he woodnt never have cum back. lease thats how he always splained it to us.

whats dun is dun, as the song says.

miz bd cum up with the idee fer a song name of For the Duration. we had us a lil musick we lacked to pick at, so i made up sum wurds n we recorded it. the lank is to the mp3 of that song, witch ifn ye take a noshun, ye kin click the lank n downlode the song n listen toot. ye kin foller along on the wurds:

For the Duration

"Yesterday, September 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy ... " [FDR]

The news about Pearl Harbor sent my brothers off to war
We prayed they'd come home unharmed
Then the men in suits put up the notice on our door
The government was taking the farm
Forty bucks an acre, Ma said they owed us more
We'd just put a new roof on the barn

When we asked why we got no explaination
We all must sacrifice for our nation
The war's begun
And what's done is done
And it won't be undone
For the Duration

"Tragic fate has thrust upon us grave responsibility." [Harry S Truman]

They brought truckloads of houses, built a town they called Oak Ridge
Washington had a plan
Fenced us in from Gallagher out to the Solway Bridge
Built factories on our bottom land
Ma n me got jobs, bought a radio and a fridge
Forty cents an hour, like a man

When we asked why we got no explaination
We all must sacrifice for our nation
The war's begun
And what's done is done
And it won't be undone
For the Duration

"Some people laughed, some people cried." [J. Robert Oppenheimer]

We never knew what it would do
We only did what they told us to ...
Amid the mud and boardwalks we lived like pioneers
A hundred thousand souls, most of us volunteers
Life was pretty good, after them depression years
Living for Saturday dances, drinking 3.2 beers
And making something secret with our blood, sweat and tears ...
When we found out what we'd done
Released the power of a thousand suns
And it won't be undone
For the Duration

"Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds." [J. Robert Oppenheimer]

Dave came home a hero, Tom was lost at sea,
Ma was never quite the same
Cancer took her from us back in 1963
Some say radiation was to blame
When some new country gets the bomb, you see it on TV
Don't know if I'm proud or ashamed.

When we asked why we got no explaination
We all must sacrifice for our nation
The war's begun
And what's done is done
And it won't be undone
For the Duration

"The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base ... " [Harry S. Truman]

miz bd wuz a jurnlist fer minny a year n one of the fellers she innerviewed wuz a surviver frum hiroshima. he taught her a lil japanese that we use a lot round our house. tiz a fraze n it goes lack this: shi kata ga nai. how it happend wuz she ast im ifn he wuz mad bout that bomb bein dropped n he splaind the fraze to her, sed it meant, 'unfortunate thing has happend; we must live on.'

so the bomb wuz bilt n dropped n now its a'spreadin thu the worl. whats dun is dun n twont be undun ... for the durayshun.

shi kata ga nai.