Summer Snow

2 weeks ago by @gmcgath

Summer Snow

gmcgath

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Liner Notes

Sometimes a song grabs me and demands that I write it. This was one of those cases.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-forgotten-victims-of-the-first-atomic-bomb/

I saw a video on girls in a dance camp held near the Trinity nuclear test site on July 16, 1945. They were dangerously close, but there had been no warning or evacuation. They saw snow falling in July and were delighted; but it wasn't snow. It was fallout. Only one of them lived to be old, and she too had survived cancer.

When I saw the video, I thought immediately of Kathy Mar's "Edward" (based on the movie Edward Scissorhands) and thought with dismay that I had to write this.
#filk #history

Lyrics

Summer Snow
Lyrics: Gary McGath, Copyright 2025
Tune: Kathy Mar, "Edward"

An early summer morn,
A new day at White Sands,
A group of brilliant minds
With power at their command.
A group of camping girls,
Awakened by a fearsome sound,
They went outside to see
But didn't know just what they'd found.

Refrain:
Campers who are dancing in the snow,
Even though it is a warm summer day.
As the flakes of pretty fallout
Light upon their outstretched hands
Emitting unseen rays,
They're dancing to their death,
It's shortening their days
And poisoning their breath
They are dancing to their death.

The ones who set it loose
Could not let people know.
They did not know themselves
What would come with the snow.
They had a war to win,
They shrouded all in secrecy
Upon that summer night
Although the burst was plain to see.

Refrain

Now in the documents
The tale is fully told,
I see their trusting hands
Reach out, the flakes to hold.
Their rulers lied to them,
Claimed there was no cause for alarm,
But they will dance no more,
For no one would confess the harm.

Refrain

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