anonymous April 25th, 2008 09:19AM  
The song is a ballad so pretty much tells the story itself. It's set sometime during the Vietnam war.

a guy just turned 18 is enlisted in the army and getting sent to an army camp and he's kinda nervous about it all. He doesn't really have anyone in his life to care about him and feels alone. He's sat in some cafe and asks this young girl working there if she would mind talking to him for a while so when she finishes work they go to the pier and sit and talk. He explains how he doesn't have anyone in his life and asks if he could write to her and she agrees.
He gets sent to an army camp in California then on to Vietnam and is writing her letters all the time. He tells her that he thinks he loves her and all the things that he's afraid of and how he thinks about her and when they met whenever he feels scared and it cheers him up. Then he tells her that he's not going to be able to write for a while but that she shouldn't worry.
The story then picks up at a football game in the girls town and after the anthem has been sung and the lords prayer said a man asks everyone to bow their heads as he reads a list of the soldiers killed in vietnam. Under one of the stands is the young girl crying because the soldier she fell in love with is one of the names read.

The chorus is basically talking about her crying and not thinking she'll ever be able to love anyone else again because she's still waiting for the soldier to come home. She doesn't want to believe that he's really never coming home so she waits for the letter telling her he's coming home safe and everyone is telling her she's too young to be spending the rest of her life waiting for the soldier to return and trying to convince her to move on but she refuses saying that she won't be alone once her soldier comes home.

anonymous October 26th, 2009 11:41PM  
This song does explain itself. I always feel like crying when it gets to the part about the piccolo player crying alone under the stands. I play the piccolo, and I am very emotional. This song does a great job of explaining the agony of waiting for someone to come home from a war.