Henry's Songbook

Chorus:
Who knows where the wind blows
Where will you be in the morning sunshine
Who knows where the wind blows
Where will you be in the morning

Back at home I heard them say, two brothers sailed for America
And they sailed away on a different day from the shores of emigration
But in between the wind turned round, one blew north and one blew south
And that was in the terror time when civil war was raging

Johnny was the younger one, he found a home near Richmond
Till a sergeant handed him a gun to fight the Yankee Union
His brother tried to settle down some place north of Boston town
Until he heard that bugle sound behind the flag of Lincoln

And when the time it came to fight each believed that he was right
And just as morning turns to night, two armies started fighting
And memories drifted back to home and boyhood days in old Tyrone
And brothers parting on the foam of the dark and stormy ocean

And so it came to Gettysburg, in golden corn, the blood ran red
In blue and grey, they fought and bled for different kinds of freedom
And when it came to man-to-man, kill or be killed was the plan
A brother died in a brother's arms on a sunny July morning

[1995:] I wrote this song after hearing a story at home about two brothers who ended up on different sides in the American Civil War, just because the wind literally blew them in different directions. I thought how often coincidences, as simple as a breeze, can determine our station and our never-to-be-surrendered convictions. (Notes Tommy Sands, 'The Heart's A Wonder')