Cranes over Hiroshima

This is sad song about young Japanese girl Sadako Sasaki. She was two years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945 near her home in Hiroshima.At the time of the explosion Sadako was at home, about one mile from Ground Zero. By November 1954, chicken pox had developed on her neck and behind her ears. Then on January 1955, purple spots had started to form on her legs. Subsequently, she was diagnosed with leukemia, which her mother referred to as "an atom bomb disease."[1] She was hospitalized on February 21, 1955 and given, at the most, a year to live.

On August 3, 1955, Sadako's best friend Chizuko Hamamoto came to the hospital to visit and cut a golden piece of paper into a square and folded it into a paper crane. At first Sadako didn't understand why Chizuko was doing this but then Chizuko retold the story about the paper cranes. Inspired by the crane, she started folding them herself, spurred on by the Japanese saying that one who folded 1,000 cranes was granted a wish...
The baby blinks her eyes as the sun falls from the sky
She feels the stings of a thousand fires as the city around her dies
Some sleep beneath the rubble, some wake to a different world
From the crying babe will grow a laughing girl

Ten summers fade to autumn, ten winters' snows have passed
She's a child of dreams and dances, she's a racer strong and fast
But the headaches come ever more often and the dizziness always returns
And the word that she hears is leukemia and it burns

{Refrain}
Cranes over Hiroshima, white and red and gold
Flicker in the sunlight like a million vanished souls
I will fold these cranes of paper to a thousand one by one
And I'll fly away when I'm done

Her ancestors knew the legend - if you make a thousand cranes
From squares of colored paper, it will take the pain away
With loving hands she folds them, six hundred forty-four
Till the morning her stumbling fingers can't fold anymore

{Refrain}

Her friends did not forget her - crane after crane they made
Until they reached a thousand and laid them upon her grave
People from everywhere gathered, together a prayer they said
And they wrote the words in granite so none can forget

This is our cry, this is our prayer, peace in the world (3x)
This is our cry, this is our prayer, peace in the world
No more Hiroshima, no more Nagasaki
This is our cry, this is our prayer, peace in the world
This is our cry, this is our prayer, peace in the world
Sing a song of peace, dream a dream of peace in the world
This is our cry, this is our prayer, peace in the world
This is our cry

Category:

Music

Tags:

• hiroshima
• sadako
• japan
• atomic bomb
• crane
• 貞子、広島

[CherryBlossom6057]

If this song doesn't make your eyes sting with tears...Then you obviously have no heart.

[BrooklynAirsoft007]

@93seanmarty i am in the middle of reading it

it is sad

[93seanmarty]

me and my class finish the book. it is sad im in4th grade and could not emagen my sister dieing she is awsome

[natalie510ful]

this tragic natural disaster is very difficult to forget :')

[dmuuc]

You didn't mention that this song was written by Rev. Fred Small, a Unitarian Universalist minister. Who's singing it?

[titaniclinkinpark]

lol copy and paste from wikipedia :P