3. Bottles and Cans
(What Grandpa Told God When
Pa Came Back From the War)
A hundred years ago, a soldier came home shell-shocked, war-weary, and out of control. His wife
gave him an ultimatum to change or leave (“Fido”). He turned to God for help, but he had to give up all drinking and carousing — which he gladly did for his life and his wife.
I wrote this song as the middle part of three songs. “Fido" is the confrontation. This song is the pivot that explains the third song in the trilogy (“Half a Man”).
He gives up being half a man, and is now whole.
The middle part is the most interesting to me, where the song tries to explain that rehearsing old trauma stories actually causes PTSD to get worse. I think it explains why soldiers who home from war are so slow to speak of the raw horror that they experienced. They stop the stories so they can survive the pain. But ironically in some cases they also cannot speak of the band of combat brothers — whom they love and honor so — without also perpetuating the other pain.
Paradoxically, the only way out is both courage — and surrender.
Jim & The Topcoats
