Andy Budd: Songs

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Son of a preacher's daughter, son of an artist's son / Shipped off to boarding school, wondering what he'd done / To lose the love of his mom and dad somewhere along the way / He yearned for love of family, nearly everyday / Joined the Corps went off to war in early '52 / An officer, a gentleman and warrior, a Marine through and through / When he came home he found a love like he had never known / Married my mom and took her kids for a family of his own

HE WAS A MAN I LOVED BUT NEVER REALLY KNEW, A BROTHER OF "THE PROUD AND FEW" / IN FULL DRESS BLUES AND SPIT-SHINED SHOES THE DAY WE LAID HIM DOWN / ON A COLD NOVEMBER MORNING ON SACRED GROUND

I only wish that he could see me now / I paid my dues, I passed the test somehow / Without all the education he insisted I would need / He never new how much I learned from him or how much I’d achieve / I did all that I could do, to make my father proud / I'd give up anything and everything if he could see me now / I was still a young man on the day my father died / I don't think he ever really knew just how hard I tried / To prove to him that I could make something of my life

HE WAS A MAN I LOVED BUT NEVER REALLY KNEW, A BROTHER OF "THE PROUD AND FEW" / A RAINBOW OF RIBBONS, CASCADED DOWN HIS CHEST / ON THAT COLD NOVEMBER MORNING, WHEN WE LAID HIM DOWN TO REST

Seven rifles, fired three times, then Taps was slowly played / On that cold November morning, the sky was painted gray / Twenty-one empty cartridges I picked up off the ground / I stuck'em in my pockets, then I slowly turned around / One last salute before we placed him in the ground / The wind was blowing harder as I turned to walk away / I wish I'd known you better Dad, I'm gonna miss you everyday / Just as I was leaving, tears came and I cried out loud / I love you Dad, I hope I made you proud

HE WAS A MAN I LOVED BUT NEVER REALLY KNEW, A BROTHER OF "THE PROUD AND FEW" / IN FULL DRESS BLUES AND SPIT-SHINED SHOES THE DAY WE LAID HIM DOWN / ON A COLD NOVEMBER / MORNING …..ON SACRED GROUND


THE STORY BEHIND THE SONG: The first thirty-or-so years of my life, I was a big disappointment to my Dad. One of his biggest disappointments was that I didn’t go to college. He would always say to me, "You’ll never be anything without a college education."

My Dad and I never had much of a relationship. In my younger days, he was overseas or chasing the carrot in his career, so I didn’t spend much time with him. Later, when he finally did have some time to spend, I was a rebellious teenager who didn’t have anytime for him. You know..- the old Harry Chapin song “Cats in the Cradle” well, that was me and my dad.

So anyway, I went off chasing my career, and I didn’t have much time for him. We found out in February of ‘95 that Dad was dying from Leukemia. So, I started going to see him just about every weekend after he started chemotherapy in July.

During these weekend visits, we started talking and mending fences. He told me about his growing up, and how he had pretty much been raised by his grandmother. His parents were constantly traveling and just didn’t have time to take care of Dad and his sister. His grandmother was an artist who had married a wealthy industrialist and she sent him (and his sister) off to boarding school. So he really had never had a sense of family, growing up.

Dad joined the Marines right out of college, mostly, he says because the Marines gave him a sense of family and the feeling that he was a part of something special.

Not long after he returned from the Korean War he met my mom, who was divorced with three kids and a waitress at her father’s drive-in. He fell in love, they got married and he had an instant family, and within 3 years my sister Melissa and I were born, bringing the total to 5 kids on a Captain’s pay.

On November 10th, 1995 my Dad passed away. And this is a song about me and him and that Cold November Morning Nov. 16th when he was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.