Scarecrow in a Corn Maze
SCARECROW IN A CORN MAZE
Pawnee, Oklahoma
Kristian's Grocery store
There's a rodeo poster
From ten years before
There's boots and produce
One person in line
Two liars out front
Watching traffic killing time
I looked up from the paper
The cashier cried
Colby James was in a ski mask
In the middle of July
(Chorus)
Scarecrow in a corn maze
Tryin’ to find some way out
Storm clouds are comin’
Take shelter in the bar
Let the twister just spin out
I knew Colbys’s walk
From a decade back
He put a camouflage boot
On a mine in Iraq
He hobbled back home
Through the pews,
Through the bars
I knew the man’s walk
Like any face I ever saw
That mornin' he'd been drinking’
He slurred above the gun,
"I only need a hundred dollars…”
Molly counted one by one
The old men on the sidewalk
Playing checkers with a clock
They saw Colby comin’
Even they knew the walk
They're used to telling stories
About their wives, about the game
But this one was the legend
Of a man named Colby James
The Sheriff shot from cruiser
Till nothin’ left the gun
‘Cause he only saw a ski mask
And Colby couldn't run
Chorus
Pawnee, Oklahoma
Frackin’ gas, drillin’ oil
Plowin’ up the fields
Shakin’ all the topsoil
Raisin’ up towers
Harvestin’ the wind
And all the jobs that blow away
Pawnee will never see again
We are caretakers of oil
Of crops, of the wind
But Colby James was just a soldier
In a war no one could win