Lyrics

Alright, so the question is, "Who is Jay Manley?" Because, for me, Jay Manley was this guitar This haunted, this haunted guitar Um, so, Jay was in my mind, as a child, um, as was My grandmother's boyfriend was always around, sweet old man Um, didn't have really any other family And always talked about jazz and playing guitar And that's kind of when I found out that he was a jazz musician in the '30s As part of a pickup band that would come through Kansas City So he was really big in the, the Kansas City jazz scene And he was, like, one of the only White musicians That was allowed to kind of fit in in the Black part of town In, in the, you know, Black bars and service, restaurants and stuff Um, and then the war started and I think he ended up hitting the beach in Normandy the day after his birthday He just saw major action Uh, the Band of Brothers was kind of what he did He was just in the, in the thick of it Ended up getting wounded and, um, ended up in the hospital And then, you know, as fate have it, the hospital catches on fire Just one by one, taking, you know As the place is burning and he's getting burned Taking one by one all these different, uh, injured soldiers out Carrying them out, dragging them out So he ended up saving thirty guys, um, and screwing up his hands So in order to even play again He had to break the cartilage in his fingers every day Just so he could play again So it was a big struggle for him, but, you know I guess he was always fighting to get back to playing So his prized possession, what is it? A Gibson L It's a 1932 Gibson L-7? L-7, okay, yeah You know, me and him started connecting over music 'Cause he, you know But I was into, you know, The Cure And you know, he was into others But still, it was, like, a cool connection And he passed and this guitar ended up with me And I always played it and just kind of, like "I wonder what it, what it sounded like When somebody who knew how to play this guitar could play it" So that was, had been sitting in my mind For years and years and years And I just remember seeing you play great And it was just, it, it hit me, "That's the guy That's the guy who's supposed to play the guitar"