Ghosts Of Our Fathers

e|-----------------| B|-----------------| G|-----------------| D|-----------------| A|-------3---0-----| E|-0-0-3---3---3-0-| Intro: Verse He was almost blind They say it happens when you've been punched to many times His hands were stone He was a bare-knuckle champion in an earlier life It was hard not to stare At his busted up nose and cauliflower ears And he'd smile at me And say the toughest fighters have their souvenirs How to carry on When the hardest punch is thrown And take away the burden from our shoulders Verse He lived next door He'd sometimes get with my father and talk about life And sit on the porch Drinkin' beer and remembering happier times And I was a child And I was far too young to ever understand What it meant to have a son Who'd been drafted and killed in Vietnam How to carry on When the hardest punch is thrown And take away the burden from our shoulders Verse My father and I Tried to keep him company so his mind could rest On Saturday nights We'd huddle 'round a black and white TV set And we all stood and cheered When Ali knocked out Foreman that night in Zaire And later that night My father held his hand as he broke down and cried How to carry on When the hardest punch is thrown And take away the burden from our shoulders Verse And there stands a wall In the clearing across from the national mall It's crowded with names Of the thousands of children that never came home I stood in the rain Watching dozens of mourners stumbling by When I saw his name I felt the ghost of our fathers kneeling at my side