“The Pilot” is track 3 from Lauren O'Connell’s sophomore album “The Shakes”, released independently in 2009.
While O'Connell’s other lyrical delights tend to draw from her own experience, The Pilot is her only entirely fictional song.
In an interview she says:
Just about everything I write is [bas...
[Verse 1]
It was early spring above Lyon
The lights like prayers all scattered and thrown
And whipping by your ears to something bigger
[Verse 2]
Past deadly aims from the Krauts' elite
The wife at home with a rosary
And a heavenly voice
A cross-hair to a trigger
[Chorus]
Didn't know what he told those stories for
About the only blind pilot in the second great war
And when he'd reached then end
Well he'd say, "That man was me"
And he claimed that he was guided by
A Kamikaze man who never wanted to die
So he sought redemption
As a ghost in a righteous ear
[Refrain]
Can you hear?
Can you hear?
Can you hear?
It's loud and clear
[Verse 3]
And I dare not speak of the hand of God
But he took more fire than a lightning rod
And escaped unscathed just ready-made for battle
[Verse 4]
And his fate was sealed
With the medals and fame
But at four o'clock lurked a foe untamed
And his comrade spoke
As the engine began to rattle:
"My friend you fly alone tonight
For I'm being called by a great white light
One that's far too pure for living eyes"
[Verse 5]
But he claimed he saw that light as well
As clear as a gun and as sharp as a bell
And he crashed real soft in a field north of Bordeaux
Going home, going home, going home
Don't send me home
[Verse 6]
So he stumbled out
With his broken soul
And he broke his leg in a rabbit hole
That snuck up quick on idle eyes and a heavy heart
They found him there after three long days
A farmer was tending to a bale of hay
And the pilot cried, because he was afraid of the dark
[Chorus]
[Refrain x2]
Can you hear?
Can you hear?
Can you hear?
It's loud and clear
Lauren O’Connell released The Pilot on Thu Aug 06 2009.