Story Behind The Song

My brother-in-law lost his 20-something-year-old son to a heroin overdose. When my brother-in-law himself was about the same age ('20 and change'), he had lost his father to a sudden heart attack.

Song Description

This is a Phil Collins-type song, about death at a way-too-young age.

Lyrics

There's a prayer card
In the inside pocket of a suit I haven't worn for a long, long time
And it's still hard not to cry when I read it
When I think about the way that boy suddenly died
Twenty-and-change is much too young
To tell your father fare-thee-well
How do you say goodbye to your own son
To keep it together when life is coming undone

Oh, brother, how do you do it
How can you still hold on
When you pray that what's real is really fiction
When it seems that life's a big contradiction
Oh, brother, how can you manage
To get up and still go on
When you're reeling from a broken heart
When it seems that life is coming apart at the dreams

There's a prayer card
In your bedside table
You've kept it since the day your daddy went in the ground
And it's still hard not to cry when you see it
When you think about the crazy way he drank himself down
Twenty-and-change is much too young
To tell your father fare-thee-well
He walked outside just to take out the trash
But his angry heart quit and he never came back

Oh, brother, how do you do it
How can you still hold on
When you pray that what's real is really fiction
When it seems that life's a big contradiction
Oh, brother, how can you manage
To get up and still go on
When you're reeling from a broken heart
When it seems that life is coming apart at the dreams

You gaze at an old family portrait
The memories run so deep
You find such joy reminiscing
But you still have to weep
So you try to laugh off the sorrow
But it stabs you like a knife
And when you think of tomorrow
You no longer fear death
You fear life

Oh, brother, how do you do it
How can you still hold on
When you pray that what's real is really fiction
When it seems that life's a big contradiction
Oh, brother, how can you manage
To get up and still go on
When you're reeling from a broken heart
When it seems that life is coming apart at the dreams

There's a prayer card
In the inside pocket of a suit I haven't worn for a long, long time