Fred Small - Leslie Is Different Lyrics
The neighbor up the road brought the messageJoe and May never had a phoneFive children grown and gone to collegeNow they lived out on Pewaukee Lake aloneAnd the nurse at the big Milwaukee hospitalSaid "We've got a baby here with no eyesIt's retarded, it's got cerebral palsySix months old living only to dieAnd we remembered the tiny EnglishwomanUsed to hire out as a nurse-governessMay Lemke, will you take this broken child off our hands?"And God loves a fool 'cause she said yes. She said:CHORUS:Leslie is differentLike everyone in the worldHe's kind of awkward, he's kind of fragileKind of graceful, kind of toughHe's kind of slow, he's kind of cleverHe's just Leslie and that's enough.He just lay there helpless and silentNot a tear, not a smile, not a wordBut they held him and rocked him and sang him to sleepAnd talked to him as if he really heardAnd he grew with the sun and affectionThough his body was spindly and smallAnd a hundred times they stood him with his hands upon the fenceAnd a hundred times watched him fallAnd their daughters warned it was uselessThey said, "Mama, that boy will break your heart."She said, "Love never comes easyAnd miracles mostly come hard." She said:CHORUSMay used to play the pianoAnd sing the old songs from the warThere was always music on the radioAnd the records she bought at the storeAnd sometimes they swore he was listeningThough of course there was no way to knowMaybe he was flying in his own blue skyWhere no one else would ever goMaybe he was lost in a forestWhere demons and woodspirits dwellBut for sixteen years he had never spoke a wordNever taken one step for himself. But they said:CHORUSAlong about three in the morningA ripple of music broke the nightJoe's fallen asleep at the TV againMay reached over to turn on the lightBut the music kept getting louderAnd the TV was quiet and coldLeslie was playing the pianoAnd his fingers were agile and boldA Tchaikovsky piano concertoLike water breaking over a damA river of ecstasy flowed through his handsAnd each note cried out, "I am." BecauseCHORUS
