B
The Field Lyrics

Raised on words like "punishment" and "God will get you If you don't do what you're told."
Growing up, she was taught to fear punishment and the wrath of God if she didn't blindly follow what she was told, creating a mindset of obedience and fear.

Nuns turned children into fearful right handed little Servants of the Lord
The nuns in her childhood forced her and her peers to become fearful, obedient, and right-handed servants to the church.

And then the atom bomb fell down on Hiroshima, North Dakota The year she turned sixteen And she said, "There is something very wrong here. Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean?"
When the atomic bomb was dropped and she was sixteen, she realized something was very wrong in the world, and questioned if anyone else could see it too.

'Cause I got visions forming in my head And I keep hearing what the preacher said Said this world will be the death of me I know it will, it's bound to be Bound to be"
Her thoughts turned to visions of destruction, fueled by the sermons of preachers preaching about the end of the world and how it will be the death of them.

Satchel full of broken hopes and empty picture postcards That she'd never send Her mama sitting on the front porch step Daddy frowning in the darkened doorway, waving his regret Then she was jumping on the Santa Fe, summer night in 1947 Bound for God knew where And she said, "I can see destruction fast approaching. I feel it in the air. I feel it in the air.
She left home with a broken heart and a bag of unfulfilled dreams, watching her parents from a distance before jumping on a train reminiscent of her life's unpredictable journey. She felt destruction was on its way, and the feeling was palpable.

On a road in Valparaiso, she met a hobo named Old John They hunkered down in a gazebo, and chose a star to gaze upon Old John said he could see her slipping, and he asked her what was wrong She said, "The rope I had been gripping turned to sand And now it's gone, now it's gone.
She met a hobo on her journey and they talked under the stars. He saw her losing her grip on life and asked her what was wrong. She replied that the rope she was holding onto has disintegrated, leaving her with nothing to hold onto.

Can't you see the writing on the blood soaked blue horizon Plain as VJ day. Hear the barking of the Drowning dogs, frozen like so many Eisenhower Statues in Pompei. I think I'll take another taste Old John, to numb my heart, God knows I'm falling fast as Atoms through the sky." She said, "This world it sure ain't no place to live in But it ain't no place to die. No it ain't no place to die...
She sees the writing on the horizon and compares it to the end of World War II. She hears the cries of the drowning and compares them to the frozen statues of Pompei. She drinks to numb her pain, falling as fast as atoms in the sky, but still believes that while this world may not be a great place to live, it is not a place to die either.