Nobody Knows

Who's this man inside my shirt?

Hi all,

Thank you for joining me for this Sunday Special.

Comments and questions are welcome. For Japanese students, vocabulary words in bold are provided in Japanese below. 

The Song

(187 words) 

Today’s song is by John McCutcheon called Nobody Knows (2022).

It’s a short story about something that many of us are familiar with, getting rid of old clothes. In the U.S., people often donate things to an organization called the Goodwill Store or the Salvation Army. These organizations receive items that people no longer need but that can be repaired and used again, for example, clothes or small appliances. The organization hires people who might have trouble finding employment and gives them job training. 

These organizations have stores around the country that sell goods at a very low price.

We don’t usually think about what happens to the items after we make our donations. This is a song about a shirt…

The singer packs a box of old clothes and takes it to a Goodwill Store. Some time later, he’s walking home one night, and he sees a special young man… and his shirt!

I won’t tell you the whole story because the song is pretty easy to follow. There are a few vocabulary words in the lyrics that you might need to know, though.

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VOCABULARY

appliance 家電製品

snore いびき

repose 平穏

mend 繕う

seams 縫い目

go to such extremes 極端になる

fall on hard times 困難な時期を経験する

John Doe (≈Yamada Taro or Yamada Hanako)

battle scar 戦いの傷跡 

In the pocket of his shirt I slipped a $10-er 彼のシャツの中に10ドル札を滑り込ませた