Five Summers For Jimmy

(album: Tony Joe White. - 1971)

She cleaned of the supper table and washed the dishes
And went outside to catch the evening breeze
The smell of sweet magnolia still on the summernight
And she hummed the song that set her mind at ease

She closed her eyes and remembered another night like this
It had been the sixteenth year of her life
When the one she loved let sit with her on the poet's swing
And told her he was going off to fight

Five summers came in fail across her shoulders
And the only news she heard was from her heart
And all this time she kept on waiting
Through the long hot summers
And the cold nights of winter she waited
And when about three weeks before
That heard that the war was over
And she still hadn't heard no news from him
She never once let it cross her mind
That he wouldn't be coming back to her
And on this particular night
That she sat there on the old poet's swing
She suddenly got up
And went around the south of the house
And got some water out of the old rain barrel

And she washed her hair
And brushed it 'til it shined
And went inside and put on her prettiest yellow dress
And she waited by the window through the night

The morning sun came shining through her restless dreams
And she awoke to somebody whistling her favourite song
And although he was walking slowly with a slight limb
She could tell that it was Jimmy and he was home