I still recall the final words my brother said to Tommy I looked after Tommy, ’cause he was my brother’s son He was only ten years old when his daddy died in prison His mama named him Tommy, but folks just called him Yellowīut something always told me, they were reading Tommy wrong He’d never stood one single time to prove the county wrong “Everyone considered him the coward of the county Here is how the song begins, along with its chorus.
It’s almost a type of pacifist mindset that Tommy’s dying dad asks the young boy to take. Now the father, in one of his last wishes, asked Tommy to turn away when trouble came along.
Tommy, as a 10-year-old boy, was around when his father died in prison.
The push-pull of emotional strings tugging within the song tell quite a story through Kenny Rogers and his voice.
