clipping time's wings

Year of Song #8:  Piggyback Ride

From mid-August to early September, I was in Southeast Asia visiting the different service projects coordinated by SEALNet, the Southeast Asian Service Leadership Network.  One of my stops was in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where the project team was working to develop and implement an English curriculum for a local orphanage, Long Hoa. 

The orphans were an amazing set of boys, ranging from 4 years old to college age; once you earned their trust, they were all bundles of energy and happy for company.  (And yes, they LOVE piggyback rides, hence the title of the song) But at the same time, they were emotionally guarded — we were only there for two weeks, and this wouldn’t be the first time a community service group spent time at their orphanage only to leave.  It was the most heartbreaking thing to hear about, team members saying that the orphans wouldn’t play or talk to them because they’re just going to leave anyways.  When I think about it, it still gives me pause; some of the team members wondered aloud if we were helping or hardening them.  I don’t really know, but the hopeful side of me thinks love known is better than no love at all.

-Andrew

photographs and your funny face, you try your best to communicate
but i just want to hear you say i’ll stay
c’mon c’mon i don’t want a sign, don’t even try, i’ve heard all the lines, oh sister, please don’t let me go

i want a piggyback ride, a piggyback ride
to somewhere where we’ll never change, tell me that i’ll see your face again

when I came to, i could count on you, there’s nothing more i wanted, but i know you’ll be leaving me someday
c’mon c’mon it’s so lonely here, i wish you and i could waste this time together, you don’t have to let me go

(oooh, oooh)

please don’t lie, why the tears?, something sad behind your eyes is all too clear
even though you must go, say that you’ll remember me ‘cause you never know—

i want a piggyback ride, a piggyback ride
to somewhere where we’ll never change, tell me that I’ll see your face again (tell me that you never want to leave)

c’mon c’mon, tell me that you wanna stay
c’mon c’mon, tell me that we’ll never change

c’mon c’mon, tell me that you wanna stay
c’mon c’mon, tell me that we’ll never change

c’mon c’mon, tell me that you wanna stay
c’mon c’mon, tell me that we’ll never change

Piggyback Ride by Andrew Plan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.