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In December 2002 I met Don Shawe, a World War II B-17 pilot who shared some stories with me and was kind enough to let me arrange them in song. the one that affects me the deepest is Don's response to the query: "What ran through your mind when you saw the plane next to you go down?" "We wondered where they left their bicycles," he said; "Maybe they had better ones than we did, and they weren't going to be using them anymore."

lyrics

We were younger than we knew
But the war it wouldn’t wait
So we packed a bag and shipped out
’Cross the sea
The boys, they called me Captain
I called them my crew
And everybody else there
Called it duty

As the months began to mount
With the skies wounded in flames
We counted many holes there
In our sides
But the orders came in steady
And we went out the same
Flying for our country
Fighting for our lives

CHORUS
Sing a prayer for those
Who’re flying out tonight
Say a prayer that they
Might make it home
But if, by chance, the way
Should somehow falter
We must find a way to carry on

She was a Boeing-17
“Rain Check” to her friends
And I brought her back in thirty times
Plus two
We saw wingmen fall in flames
Never will forget their names
As we wondered where they’d left
Their bicycles

As the fog began to drop
On the Northern German Plains
We could not see the target
Far below
But we could feel the city breathing
Like the ten of us inside
Who kept the secret when the Channel
Kept the load

CHORUS

Now there’s sixty years gone by
And there’re movies of those days
Sometimes I can’t figure
What we’ve learned
My life has settled down
But my passion’s never waned
When I think of my old buddies
I still burn

It’s all so very real
And it’s not so far away
And I don’t think I’d do well
Just letting go
The boys, they called me Captain
I called them my crew
And history, well
History calls me a hero

CHORUS

credits

from Songs to Get You From Here to There, released December 6, 2006
WW: guitar, vocal
Joe Jencks: harmony vocals
Amanda Larson: cello
Chris Glanister: whistle

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Wes Weddell Seattle, Washington

For the past twenty years, Wes Weddell has worked multiple shifts in the engine room of Seattle’s roots music scene as frontman, sideman, writer, teacher, and community-builder. "Always heartfelt and well-constructed" ("Seattle Weekly"), listeners have come to expect Weddell's songs to "speak for themselves" ("No Depression"). ... more

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