Paroles Bummer de Harry Chapin

Textes et Paroles de Bummer

His mama was a midnight womanHis daddy was a drifter drummerOne night they put it togetherNine months later came the little black bummerHe was a laid back lump in the cradleChewing the paint chips that fell from the ceilingWhenever he cried he got a fist in his faceSo he learned not to show his feelingsHe was a pig-tail puller in grammer schoolLeft back twice by the seventh gradeSniffing glue in Junior HighAnd the first one in school to get laidHe was a weed-speed pusher at fifteenHe was mainlining skag a year laterAnd he'd started pimping when they put him awayIn jail he changed from a junkie to a haterAnd just like the man from the precinct said:"Put him away, you better kill him instead.A bummer like that is better of deadSomeday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head."They threw him back on the street, he robbed an A & PHe didn't blink at the buddy that he shaftedAnd just about the time they would have caught him tooHe had the damn good fortune to get draftedHe was A-1 bait for Vietnam, you see they needed more bodies in a hurryHe was a cinch to train cause all they had to doWas to figure how to funnel his furyThey put him in a tank near the DMZTo catch the gooks slipping over the borderAnd they said his mission was to Search and DestroyAnd for once he followed and orderOne sweat-soaked day in the Yung-Po ValleyWith the ground still steaming from the rainThere was a bloody little battle that didn't mean nothingExcept to the few that remainedYou see a couple hundred slants had trapped the other five tanksAnd had started to pick off the crewsWhen he came on the scene and it really did seemThis is why he'd paid those duesIt was something like a butcher going berserkOr a sane man acting like a foolOr the bravest thing that a man had ever doneOr a madman blowing his coolWell he came on through like a knife through butterOr a scythe sweeping through the grassOr to say it like the man would have said it himself:"Just a big black bastard kicking ass!"And just like the man from the precinct said:"Put him away, you better kill him instead.A bummer like that is better of deadSomeday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head."When it was over and the smoke had clearedThere were a lot of V C bodies in the mudAnd when the rescue men came over for the very first timeThey found him smiling as he lay in his bloodThey picked up the pieces and they stitched him back togetherHe pulled through though they thought he was a gonerAnd it force them to give him what they said they wouldSix purple hearts and the Medal of HonorOf course he slouched as the chief white honkey said:"Service beyond the call of duty"But the first soft thought was passing through his mind"My medal is a Mother of a beauty!"He got a couple of jobs with the ribbon on his chestAnd though he tried he really couldn't do 'emThere was only a couple of things that he was really trained forAnd he found himself drifting back to 'emJust about the time he was ready to breakThe VA stopped sending him his checksJust a matter of time 'cause there was no doubtAbout what he was gonna to do nextIt ended up one night in a grocery storeGun in hand and nine cops at the doorAnd when his last battle was overHe lay crumpled and broken on the floorAnd just like the man from the precinct said:"Put him away, you better kill him instead.A bummer like that is better of deadSomeday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head."Well he'd breathed his last, but ten minutes pastBefore they dared to enter the placeAnd when they flipped his riddled body over they foundHis second smile frozen on his faceThey found his gun where he'd thrown itThere was something else clenched in his fistAnd when they pried his fingers open they found the Medal of HonorAnd the Sergeant said: "Where in the hell he get this?"There was a stew about burying him in ArlingtonSo they shipped him in box to FayetteAnd they kind of stashed him in a grave in the county plotThe kind we remember to forgetAnd just like the man from the precinct said:"Put him away, you better kill him instead.A bummer like that is better of deadSomeday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head.

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