The Night I Learned How Not to Pray

Song	The Night I Learned How Not to Pray
Artist	Iris DeMent
Album	Sing the Delta

	I was laying on my belly on the middle of the living room floor
	I was watching
	Howdy Doody so
	I’m guessin’ it was right around four
	When I saw my baby brother tumblin’ from the top of the stairs
	He was lying limp and silent and the blood was tricklin’ through his shiny hair
	When my mom saw little brother, she said “
	Hon, you’d better run and get your dad.
	Her voice was high and she was shaking so
	I knew that this was bad
	We stood out by the mailbox watchin’ her and dad and brother drive away
	And I didn’t waste no time,
	I got down on my knees right there, and
	I began to pray
	I prayed into the evening never even took the time to have a bite
	I was sure if
	I prayed hard enough that
	God would make it right
	We were at the kitchen table long past bedtime when we finally got that call
	And I knew that it was over when my sister slammed that phone against the wall
	That was the night
	I learned how not to pray
	Cause God does what he wants to anyway
	I never did tell my mother and
	I kept it from my sisters and all my brothers
	But that was the night
	I learned how not to pray
	It was forty-one years later when
	I took my brother’s picture out of a box
	I hung it on the wall, sat across from him and
	I began to talk
	When the evening started,
	I didn’t know what
	I was going say
	But before the night was over
	I’d told him all about how
	I’d learned not to pray

	I was laying on my belly on the middle of the living room floor
	I was watching
	Howdy Doody so
	I' m guessin' it was right around four
	When I saw my baby brother tumblin' from the top of the stairs
	He was lying limp and silent and the blood was tricklin' through his shiny hair
	When my mom saw little brother, she said "
	Hon, you' d better run and get your dad.
	Her voice was high and she was shaking so
	I knew that this was bad
	We stood out by the mailbox watchin' her and dad and brother drive away
	And I didn' t waste no time,
	I got down on my knees right there, and
	I began to pray
	I prayed into the evening never even took the time to have a bite
	I was sure if
	I prayed hard enough that
	God would make it right
	We were at the kitchen table long past bedtime when we finally got that call
	And I knew that it was over when my sister slammed that phone against the wall
	That was the night
	I learned how not to pray
	Cause God does what he wants to anyway
	I never did tell my mother and
	I kept it from my sisters and all my brothers
	But that was the night
	I learned how not to pray
	It was fortyone years later when
	I took my brother' s picture out of a box
	I hung it on the wall, sat across from him and
	I began to talk
	When the evening started,
	I didn' t know what
	I was going say
	But before the night was over
	I' d told him all about how
	I' d learned not to pray