Bobryanmusic.com: The Tracks

Shattered Dream

(Bob Ryan)

June, 2004

Words and Music by Bob Ryan

Over the years, from our first contact with Bosnian people and continuing right up to the present, I have heard stories of what people went through during the breakup of Yugoslavia -- from the point of view of Croats, Muslims and Serbs. All three sides suffered and all three sides lost life and property.

This song comes very directly out of some of those stories -- from the very words of people I have known and what they saw and experienced during that time.

What often amazed me was that, in my experience, there was no real way of distinguishing between the three main groups: wether Muslim, Serb or Croat, all three were of Slavic extraction, spoke the same basic language (with minor regional differences,) looked the same, dressed the same, lived similarly... one of the few ways the Yugoslavs themselves could tell the difference was the person's first name. I have known Serbs with very Turkish family names like Hadjic, and I have known Blonde, blue-eyed and very nordic looking Muslims. But it was the given name -- Stevo, Ante, Emir, Slava, Dejana -- that signalled "ethnicity."

This song makes the somewhat idealistic claim "They will never make me hate you for your name." I have known some that had this spirit and I rejoice to call them my friends.

Shattered Dream

Out beyond the trees, a flash of light tears another bright hole in the night
A rattle from the small arms says somebody’s nervous, bored or high.
Two blocks away, a shell rips into something, and maybe someone dies.
They say as long as you can hear the whine, you’re probably all right
The night is black, no light on any street: the children wake up screaming.
...still a little water; nothing left to eat.
No word from Anja or Mirsada – now in my fitful dreaming
I keep seeing pictures of them lying in the street

It’s colder than I can remember, everything buried in the snow.
Someone got through yesterday with letters from our family behind the lines.
Another shot screams through the trees, crashes down somewhere beyond the river,
Maybe it was Vesna’s house; oh well, I just thank God it wasn’t mine.
Somewhere a radio is playing love songs, like a whisper in the darkness;
A baby cries; another bullet flies.
Pieces of the window on the carpet catch the waning moonlight
You don’t ever get to see the killer’s eyes.

In this shattered dream that was my city
In these haunted hills where no sweet thing remains
They can rain down tears and fill the years with blood and thunder
But they will never make me hate you for your name.

Yesterday I watched a little child run across the space between the buildings.
Darting in between the rusting shells of burned out cars out on the street below.
Then, for just a moment I could see him slow, maybe confused about the way.
My eyes snapped shut, a rifle shot rang out – and there was nothing but the snow.
We were children in these streets together, hand in hand and laughing
I never once thought you were different than me.
How did all the politics and fear twist our people’s hearts and hands to madness?
This night may never lift, but, as long as I have eyes to see...

In this shattered dream that was my city
In these haunted hills where no sweet thing remains
They can rain down tears and fill the years with blood and thunder
But they will never make me hate you for your name.

©2000, 2004 by Bob Ryan, Published by Leaping Armadillo Music, (ASCAP),
March 20, 2000; Phoenix, AZ