Fire at Shepherd's Flat Songtext
von Brian Cadd

The Country Fire Association president
He smiles and calls his name
And though he moves as if he′s dreaming
In appearance, all is seeming much the same
If only they knew what that old man went through
Just to sit around and slowly go insane

Just a pawn in the game, no one knows who's to blame
For the fire at Shepherd′s that burned all night
No one knows just what he lost
No one stopped to count the cost
Of the fire at Shepherd's that burned all night
If only it'd rained

We remembered when they moved in ′cross the river
Nigh on fifteen years ago
They were immigrants, spoke strangely
And the kids at school thought both sons were slow
But they worked that dry old farm
Never doing no one harm
Though they never won no prizes in our show


Just a pawn in the game, no one knows who′s to blame
For the fire at Shepherd's that burned all night
No one knows just what he lost
No one stopped to count the cost
Of the fire at Shepherd′s that burned all night

Temperature was rising on that sultry summer afternoon
And all that we could do was stand and watch
Through the haze we saw them running
Helpless figures going nowhere as the old man crossed the river
The inferno jumped the firebreak just on midnight
And the farmhouse in the distance slowly vanished

With a misadventure verdict and no future
The old man slowly waned
And that winter he just sat there
In the ashes of his lifetime while it rained
With what the township could collect
And with the bank a loan for a vet
We spoke of God and tried to ease the pain

Just a pawn in the game, no one knows who's to blame
For the fire at Shepherd′s that burned all night
No one knows just what he lost
No one stopped to count the cost
Of the fire at Shepherd's that burned all night


Oh, just a pawn in the game, no one knows who′s to blame
For the fire at Shepherd's that burned all night
No one knows just what he lost
No one stopped to count the cost
Of the fire at Shepherd's that burned all night
If only it′d rained