Wide Awake in Weyauwega
My brush with death on the Wolf River was the inspiration for a country song I wrote once. It’s the story of a guy whose wife leaves him just as the river is starting to freeze up, and the question he fears to ask: Did she even make it to the other side? The compulsion of Wisconsonites to start place names with Ws — Weyauwega, Waupaca, Wauwatosa, Winnebago, Winneconne, etc. — dictated the alliteration in the refrain.
WIDE AWAKE IN WEYAUWEGA
© 1991, F.R. Duplantier
It was early in December
When the ice was still quite thin
That my love lit out and left me
And never came back again.
That’s why I’m wide awake
In Weyauwega,
Wondering what went wrong.
Yes, I’m wide awake
in Weyauwega,
Wishing you’d come home.
Cold snap hit right after she left
And the river froze good and hard,
So I’d cross each day to check the box,
But she never sent a card.
That’s why, ETC.
The days are getting longer
And the ice is breaking free.
Still no word from the one I love –
Will she ever come back to me?
That’s why, ETC.
