From the recordings America at 250 – Limited Edition CD + FREE Digital Download and America At 250 – Digital Download
Rick, I kept your **personal voice**, but smoothed the flow and deepened the emotion so it reads like something you’d post **right before people listen to the song**.
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A few days ago I watched the return of six of our service members at Dover Air Force Base. As those flag-draped cases came down that ramp, something opened up inside me that I thought had quieted with time. It left a hole in my heart. Even all these years after coming home from Vietnam, the faces of the buddies I left behind still show up in my mind as if it were yesterday. The doctors at the VA have tried to help me put some of those memories away. But the truth is… I don’t think I want to. Those memories belong to the men I served beside.
Being a songwriter gives me something many combat veterans don’t always have — a place to put those feelings. Music lets me take the grief, the love, the anger, and the memories and turn them into something that can be shared. After watching our brothers and sisters come home again a few days ago at Dover, I knew I had to sit down and write.
This song is called **“The Ramp at Dover.”**
It’s very personal. I wrote it for myself… and for every veteran who carries those memories that never really fade. The faces. The voices. The empty spaces where our friends should still be. The memories that stay with us day after day… year after year.
Most of the songs I write use four or five voices from the band. But this one needed more. This one called for all **15 members of the Blue Wave Revival Band** to help carry the emotion, the somber tone, and the story that needed to be told.
I also want to extend a heartfelt thank you to **MGM Resorts** for their support and for allowing us to record this piece in their professional studio. Their generosity helped us bring this song to life the way it deserved to be heard.
If you can, listen to this one with **headphones**. Let the voices surround you. Let the emotion come through the way we felt it while recording it.
And if the song touches you, share it with someone.
Share it with a veteran.
Share it with a military family.
Because every time we remember them…
the brothers and sisters we lost are never truly gone.
Welcome to “The Ramp at Dover.”
Lyrics
THE RAMP AT DOVER
[Intro – Male Spoken, soft piano]
I watched them come home today.
Six flag-draped coffins…
coming down the ramp at Dover.
And just like that…
every face I lost
came back to me.
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[Verse 1 – Male Lead]
The cargo door swung open slow
Runway lights burned white
Six folded flags beneath the sky
Moving through the night
Bootsteps echoed on the steel
No one said a word
Just the sound of quiet sorrow
Louder than the birds
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[Verse 2 – Male Lead]
I’ve seen that walk before my friend
Too many years ago
Different flags, same silence
Same cold Dover snow
And every name I carry still
Came rushing through my mind
The ones who laughed beside me once
And got left behind
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[Chorus – Male Lead + Female Harmony]
They’re not just coffins on that plane
They’re voices that I hear
They’re empty seats at kitchen tables
Every single year
They’re boots that won’t come walking in
Through that old front door
They’re the quiet tears that fall
On Dover’s lonely floor
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[Verse 3 – Male Lead]
Someone’s son is coming home
Someone’s little girl
Someone’s best damn friend in life
Who thought they’d see the world
But war don’t care about your plans
Or promises you keep
It leaves a folded flag behind
And memories that don’t sleep
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[Bridge – Female Lead]
Tell his mother he was brave
Tell his father he stood tall
Tell his children he was proud
Tell them everything…
But it won’t fill that hole at all
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[Chorus – Male Lead + Female Harmony]
They’re not just coffins on that plane
They’re voices that I hear
They’re empty seats at kitchen tables
Every single year
They’re boots that won’t come walking in
Through that old front door
They’re the quiet tears that fall
On Dover’s lonely floor
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[Verse 4 – Male Lead]
And I swear I heard my buddy laugh
Blowing in the wind
Like he was standing next to me
Just like we’d always been
We were young and thought forever
Was something we could store
But every time that ramp comes down
You feel the cost of war
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[Final Chorus – Male Lead + Female Harmony]
They’re not just coffins on that plane
They’re brothers that we know
They’re the voices in the silence
When the bugle starts to blow
Standing just behind our shoulder
In every step we go
They’re the silent truth that waits
On Dover’s quiet shore
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[Spoken Outro – Male]
I watched them come home today…
(pause)
And I remembered every friend
who never got the chance to grow old.
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[Spoken Outro – slow]
This song is from the
Blue Wave Revival Band
(...pause...)
A band of veterans
and musicians
who believe
the cost of war
should never be forgotten
Remember the fallen.
Stand up for the living.
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[Instrumental Outro]
(Slow piano
Low cello swells
Soft female humming
Distant honor-guard snare fading away)
[Instrumental Outro – 20 seconds]
(Slow piano continues
Cello swells underneath
Soft female humming
Distant military snare fading like an honor guard march )
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