Monica Grabin: Song Lyrics & Clips

• MP3 short clip, hi-fi play (broadband)

Thanks to Paul Clark for allowing me to use this song. It was written for a theatrical piece in England in the 1980's and is a masterpiece of succinct and very powerful imagery.

Our great attack it failed, we'd nothing left to give.
The wounded hanging in the wire had little time to live.
The German shells came screaming down to shred them as they lay,
Abandoned in the valley of the shadow.

The battle ground that night would look as bright as day,
As fairy flares turned blackness into bitter, lifeless gray.
The twisted shapes that once were men in senseless patterns lay,
The tenants of the valley of the shadow.

The torn and shattered fields, the bits of wire and steel
No blade of grass or leaf or tree to make the place seem real.
An ancient traveler passing by just couldn't help but say:
“This surely is the valley of the shadow.”

Let pictures of that scene be hung on every wall
In rooms where governments decide if men should stand or fall.
They'd never go to war again if leaders had their say
While looking at the valley of the shadow.