"The Man He Was" lyrics - EMITT RHODES

In a village in the woods they plant a tree for every newborn babe
So they sowed a seed for a child named John and they watched it day by day
The tree it grew in a very strange way as twisted as a knot
And the child he grew in the very same way and never would his parents have thought.

The lad was bright and he learned to read as well as he could talk
But his limbs were as twisted as the tree and never would he walk
People would come to stop and stare and you could hear them say
It doesn't seem to me to be quite fair and then be on their way.

Sing a song of joy, lift your hearts in song
For a newborn boy, for a life that's long
For a life that's long.

Now he loved the tree even though it was as twisted as himself
For somewhere deep inside his soul he thought of nothing else
And the boy he grew, did the best he could but his limbs remained the same
Well, whoever listens who will understand someone who is lame.

Some came to cry and some came to laugh the day he passed away
He's really not dead, he's just taking a nap, I heard somebody say
I really can't explain the tree had died, it withered without love
But a stump remains to remind us of the man that he was.

Sing a song of death, sing a song of peace
Sing a song of rest and a song of relief
Till the end of time
Till the end of time
Till the end of time.