Leslie Is Different

The neighbor up the road brought the message

Joe and May never had a phone

Five children grown and gone to college

Now they lived out on Pewaukee Lake alone

And the nurse at the big Milwaukee hospital

Said "We've got a baby here with no eyes

It's retarded, it's got cerebral palsy

Six months old living only to die

And we remembered the tiny Englishwoman

Used to hire out as a nurse-governess

May Lemke, will you take this broken child off our hands?"

And God loves a fool 'cause she said yes. She said:

CHORUS:

Leslie is different

Like everyone in the world

He's kind of awkward, he's kind of fragile

Kind of graceful, kind of tough

He's kind of slow, he's kind of clever

He's just Leslie and that's enough.

He just lay there helpless and silent

Not a tear, not a smile, not a word

But they held him and rocked him and sang him to sleep

And talked to him as if he really heard

And he grew with the sun and affection

Though his body was spindly and small

And a hundred times they stood him with his hands upon the fence

And a hundred times watched him fall

And their daughters warned it was useless

They said, "Mama, that boy will break your heart."

She said, "Love never comes easy

And miracles mostly come hard." She said:

CHORUS

May used to play the piano

And sing the old songs from the war

There was always music on the radio

And the records she bought at the store

And sometimes they swore he was listening

Though of course there was no way to know

Maybe he was flying in his own blue sky

Where no one else would ever go

Maybe he was lost in a forest

Where demons and woodspirits dwell

But for sixteen years he had never spoke a word

Never taken one step for himself. But they said:

CHORUS

Along about three in the morning

A ripple of music broke the night

Joe's fallen asleep at the TV again

May reached over to turn on the light

But the music kept getting louder

And the TV was quiet and cold

Leslie was playing the piano

And his fingers were agile and bold

A Tchaikovsky piano concerto

Like water breaking over a dam

A river of ecstasy flowed through his hands

And each note cried out, "I am." Because

CHORUS