When Sunday Turned Dark (Palm Sunday Outbreak, 1965)

[Verse 1] Palm leaves rested in children's hands Sunday coats and polished shoes Church bells carried through the morning Under bright and open blue Families gathered, voices rising Springtime waiting at the door No one knew the distant thunder Would become something much more [Verse 2] Then the daylight started changing Clouds came racing through the west Wind began to shake the windows Like it would not let them rest People watched from porches, doorways Trying hard to understand Was this only passing weather Or something moving through the land? [Pre-Chorus] And the warnings traveled slowly By the ways they had back then Word of mouth and hurried voices Calling neighbors, warning friends [Chorus] When Sunday turned dark And the sky lost its blue We looked toward the heavens Not knowing what to do Some asked what it meant Some asked where it would go Some simply watched the horizon Trying to learn what they could know When Sunday turned dark The old answers felt small For the sky had shown us something None of us could measure at all [Verse 3] By the time the storm had passed us There were stories left behind Places changed and lives disrupted Questions no one could unwind How had all these storms come calling? Could the signs have told us more? What should we have seen before them? What should we be watching for? [Pre-Chorus] And the people kept remembering Every detail they could find Because yesterday's confusion Might become tomorrow's sign [Chorus] When Sunday turned dark We began to understand That knowing storms were coming Wasn't only watching clouds It was learning how to listen It was learning how to warn It was building better systems For the people in the storm When Sunday turned dark The questions carried on And every answer found afterward Helped tomorrow come along [Bridge] Some looked upward for an answer Some looked deeper into faith Some began to study weather Trying to understand its ways And nobody had the whole truth Nobody could see it all But every question asked that Sunday Helped another answer call [Final Chorus] When Sunday turned dark The story didn't end The science kept on learning And the warnings grew again Every scar became a question Every question found a way Every lesson carried forward Gave tomorrow more time each day When Sunday turned dark We carried something through Not a promise storms were over But a better way to know [Outro] The palms were laid down The church bells ceased But the questions born that Sunday Would not let the watching cease.