As The Thunder Rolls

As The Thunder Rolls By Captain Midnight
Adapted from “The Thunder Rolls” by Garth Brooks

Though this poem explores many of the themes in Garth Brooks’ classic ballad, it is most definitely NOT a carbon copy -- especially if you’ve somehow heard the complete version of the song with its infamous third verse (which was never played on the radio and only rarely in clubs, although the video features it).

For Hotstuff.

Three thirty in the morning,

On an Easter Sunday night …

Her birthday approaches

And she fears not all is right …

Now she sits at her station
Wondering if love
Can brush her with its wings again
Or has departed like a dove …

And the thunder rolls …
And the thunder rolls.
 
A man calls her by her screen name,
Asking her to chat …
He's pleasant and he’s caring
As they talk of this and that.

He opens up his heart to her
And her feeling for him grows
‘Til the lightning flashes in her eyes
And she knows that she knows.

And the thunder rolls …
And the thunder rolls.

September eleventh 
in the year two thousand one.
Now she checks all the news reports 
Hoping he’s not gone …

Though she moved away two months ago
From a husband whose love had fled …
She fears death and devastation
Rained down on that husband’s head.

And the thunder rolls …
The thunder rolls.

Finally the phone rings
From her brother dear and true,
Both men survived that day
In the hell of York City New.

But thirty-six days later
As her new love testifies …
Gunshots shatter her world
He slips away and dies.

And the thunder rolls …
The thunder rolls.

And the Thunder rolls,
And the Lightning strikes.
Her love is laid to rest
Her heart feels pierced by spikes …

The storm roars through her mind out of control.
Deep in her heart …
The Thunder rolls.

 (Transitional music to Part Two)

She cannot return back 
To the place she long had lived.
She feels nobody would want her,
Too many bad names they would give.

She goes off the other way,
Unaware that while they were one,
He gave her the greatest gifts,
A daughter and a son.

And the Thunder rolls ….
And the Thunder rolls.

Nine thirty in the evening,
At what seems the end of her rope,
A caring man notices her 
And again she receives hope.

He accepts her as she is,
She becomes his blushing bride,
And they explore where they have never been,
Their new family at their side.

And the thunder rolls …
And the thunder rolls.

The thunder rolls 
And the sun shines bright,
Through her new family,
She thinks she sees the light …

But the storm comes back
Out of control …
For a long time yet
The thunder rolls.

(Transitional music to Part Three)

Ten years have passed, she is settled down,
The gravestones now number four,
Her mom, her first husband and her first son,
Lie beneath a sycamore.

And saddest yet, the man she loved
She found she could not change …
As good as he was and still can be,
Away from her he'll range.

And the thunder rolls,
And the thunder rolls.

In court now they sign papers,
Though loving to the end,
She cannot live with him,
Her heart she must again mend.

Once again a single mom,
She wonders what men would say,
She pours out her heart to a computer screen
And tells herself “Come what may.”

And the thunder rolls …
And the thunder rolls.

The thunder rolls,
But now the sun shines bright,
She no longer has
To spend a sleepless night,

For at last she knows 
What she truly will be,
And no one will be loved
Quite as much as she.

(Final riff.)