Name: Fly Away Magpie
Duration: P00H03M41S
Description: Be forewarned. This is a very dark song.

Fly Away Magpie

by Shelley Ackerman

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Be forewarned. This is a very dark song.

lyrics

Fly Away Magpie
Shelley Ackerman
May 17, 2018

Met my love at the general store
He weren’t like nothing I’d seen before
Fly away magpie, spread your pretty black wings
So tall and sharp in his army greens
It took my breath when he smiled at me
Fly away magpie, spread your pretty black wings

One for sorrow, two for joy
Three for a girl and four for a boy
Fly away magpie, spread your pretty black wings (2)

We got married on the very next night
One week later he left to fight
Fly away magpie, spread your pretty black wings
Wrote me letters from a place so foreign
Nine months later our babies were born
Fly away magpie, spread your pretty black wings

One for sorrow, two for joy
Three for a girl and four for a boy
Fly away magpie, spread your pretty black wings (2)

Bombs and shells and the bullets fly
While here I sit and our babies cry
Fly away magpie, spread your pretty black wings
Uniformed man at my door did tell
How my lover’s own bullet sent him straight to hell
Fly away magpie, spread your pretty black wings

BREAK (chorus x 2)

I couldn’t be a mama if I can’t be a wife
So I sent them both to Jesus with a sharp steel knife
Fly away magpie, spread your pretty black wings
Soon my soldier I’m going to see
Yeah, he and the devil are waiting on me
Fly away magpie, spread your pretty black wings

One for sorrow, Two for mirth
Three for a funeral, Four for birth
Five for heaven, Six for hell
Seven for the devil, his own damned self
Fly away magpie, spread your pretty black wings (3)

credits

released September 18, 2019

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Shelley Ackerman Rossland, British Columbia

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