Below is untitled songsheets ca 1967. If you would like to verify the texts below, please download the PDF scanned pages.
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WILLIAM E. M*GEE
'»7™ AVrL CO. ,^PO .38
&N FRANCISCO; CAL.
I DON'T WANT TO JOIN THE ARMY
J<*r*j.*t. wirit fAjfakn the- Aray,
don't want to go to war,
I just want to hang around Picadilly under ground
Living off the earnings of some high class lady.
I donTt want a bullet up me arse hole,
Don't want me buttocks shot away,
Just wijTac to liv« in England, in Jolly jolly England
' And fornicate me hioojrjn 3ife ew*y.
Oh b]±mey
Monday me hand wrs on her ankle
Tuosasy I touched her on the knee
Wednesday with much success, I lifted up her dress
Thurrany I orocedsd furx-her
Friday I r»u*i rue hard vpon it
Saturday ^oo gave me balls a'tweak
And ..c.i;.r.ca/ :il lev sucpe r: I rvracd. the-old boy up bor,
And now I-n paying i9 a >/ee>.
On blimey
Call out the Army and the Navy
Call uuu the Queens Artillery
Call cut me laoisner, me sifctsr, and me brother,
But fo^ God! s sakp d^:ct vrail me*
THE STEEFLE
He stood on the steeple,
and he peed on the people,
but the people couldn11 peo on hin«
AMEN.
BIG BLACK HUEY
The big black Huey came up from the Delta,,
General Stillwell.
The big black Huey oaid« xip £r<m the Delta,
Lang--* am/* &£*>•
It was a long time ago, it was a long time ago,
The big blsck Huey came up from the delta,
Long time ago.
He spied him a dike and he spied him a Shawnee $___»
He jumped that dike and he jumped that Shawnee •---
He missed that dike and he missed that Shawnee *---
His skids hung low but his rotor hung lower.— —
The big black Huey vent back to the Delta,— —
(1)
3°6 1 [ A BRIGHT SHINING LIE
i
id at the Seminary, and at Tan Son Nhut. Ziegler first heard a
sergeant
singing it and made the man repeat it slowly while he wrote down the
words for his diary. The verses were flawed by a number of factual
inaccuracies. Ballads of battles composed by the men who fight them
often do suffer from factual inaccuracies because of the confusion
of
war, but the inaccuracies do not detract from truth. The
ballad—called
"Ap Bac" and sung to the tune of "On Top of Old Smokey"—would
have told the president what he needed to know:
We were called into Tan Hiep
On January 2,
We would never have gone there
If we'd only knew.
We were supporting the ARVNs,
A group without guts,
Attacking a village
Of straw-covered huts.
A ten-copter mission,
A hundred-troop load,
Three lifts were now over
A fourth on the road.
The VC's start shooting,
They fire a big blast,
We off-load the ARVNs
They sit on their ass.
One copter is crippled,
Another sits down,
Attempting a rescue,
Now there are two on the ground.
A Huey returns now
To give them some aid,
The VCs are so accurate
They shoot off a blade.
Four pilots are wounded,
Two crewmen are dead,
When it's all over
A good day for the Red.
They lay in the paddy
All covered with slime,
A hell of a sunbath
Eight hours at a time.
An armored battalion
Just stayed in a trance,
TAKING ON THE SYSTEM ] [ 307
One captain died trying
To make them advance.
The paratroops landed,
A magnificent sight,
There was hand-to-hand combat,
But no VCs in sight.
When the news was reported
The ARVNs had won,
The VCs are laughing
Over their captured guns.
All pilots take warning,
When tree lines are near,
Let's land those damn copters
One mile to the rear.
One of the vestiges of the Geneva Agreements of 1954 was a
tripartite
organization called the International Commission for Supervision and
Control. The commission had been created to monitor observance of
the accords by all parties and had therefore been balanced by
delegations
from Communist Poland, anti-Communist Canada, and then neutral
India, which held the chairmanship permanently and was supposed to
referee. By 1963, the ICSC had long ceased to serve any purpose, but
the delegations still maintained offices and living quarters in
Hanoi and
Saigon, commuted back and forth on a special plane, and, because of
their diplomatic status, circulated with relative freedom in both
capitals.
The delegates were thus thought to be informed about opinion on both
sides of the war.
The senior Polish delegate in 1963 was an inquiring man, a Jewish
intellectual named Miecyslaw Maneli, who taught international law at
the University of Warsaw when he was not on diplomatic assignment.
He had helped the Vietnamese as a member of an ICSC inspection team
in 1954, and they liked him. At a reception in Hanoi one evening he
was taken aside by another man of inquiring mind with rough, homely
features, the sort one would expect in a rice-paddy Vietnamese and
not
in the son of the chief secretary to the last of the Nguyen emperors
to
be deposed and exiled by the French—Pham Van Dong, Ho Chi Minh's
prime minister. There was no need for an interpreter; both men spoke
French.
"Tell me something," the prime minister said. "The American gen-
erals are always boasting of how they are winning the war in the
South.
Do they believe it?"
"Yes," Maneli replied. "As far as T can Hkmv«f th^r s~ »
IN THE MEKONG RIVER DELTA
In the Mekong River £elta, _
In the land of Vietnam. / "^\
There's a Hamlet known a^Ap-Bacj/
Where the choppers made arimT^^
The old goats there were loaded,
With ten troops in every one.
. As they started their approach,
They heard, the sound of V.C. guns,
There were forty on the left of them,
And fifty on the right.
Then the sky was filled with tracers,
Twas a very awful sight.
Then a Huey made a run,
Firing rockets through the air.
28fs and 26fs, dropping bombs,
and strafing there.
An Army Captain on the ground,
Tried to rouse the ARVN.
On his radio he gave a call,
All at once they saw him fall*
The reeds there were covered,
With the dead by the score-
A Huey- had crashed therer
One chat won't fly anymore♦
What happened to the Briefing,
That the pilots had been given-
Intelligence reports had failed,
XnA the choppers had bea$ nailed*
Whan the last count was taken,
There were five on the ground.
Stay away from those treelines,
And don*t land with those V.C. around.
CHRISTMAS IN THE MESS HALL
It was Christmas in the Mess Hall,
All the pilots gathered there.
They were seated !round the table,
And singing filled the air.
tvhen up stepped the Major, and he gazed around the hall,
Merry Christmas all you pilots, and the pilots all cried BALLS!
This made the Major angry,
And he swore by all the gods#
You shall have no chocolate pudding,
You no good bunch of slobs.
Then up jumped the CAPTAIN, with his face as hard as brass,
You can take your chocolate pudding, and shove it up your ass!
SHAUNEE PILOTS LAMEKT
Oh there are no Shawnee pilots down in hell (tXa^t
Air Force crewman, bombadiers, Huey pilots and some cjueers
There are no Field Grade pilots in the fray
They're sitting in Seigon reading novels in th« John.
Oh the Huey pilots life is just a farce
They don!t land in the grass, they just shoot koles incwtr ass
The Air Force bombers give us our support
Ue want napalm but they say, fuel is gone we1 *e on our way
Oh there are no Shawnee pilots in the States
They are off on Vung Tau Shores, catching clap fz^>m all the
whores♦
GIVE ME OPERATIONS
m > ........ ......."
Give me operations way out some lonely atoll$
For I'm to young to die, I just want to go home.
Don't give me a UH-1A,
Not a nicIoBl for it would I pay.
Wi.th one rocket blast, it will shoot off your ass,
Dc:vt give ne a UI1-1A — COCOOhh
Don't give mc a UH-12,
lis a hell of a ship don't you see.
Its Fmerson kit, it- will not shoot shit,
Dcr.'v, give me a UH-13 ..... OOOOOhh
Dc'L'?.T'l. />;ive mo an 07-1..
Social veapon-* liki ;rad~r and guns.
Sbv;:, iV,:3t I don:" c-.vre, she blrws up in mid air,
P02.M; give me a«i 07-! — OOOOOhh
Dor/"!: tci^3 m.^ a 'J7--?-,
It's a hell of a s::u. thru and thru.
With its rate of dss^.= r:t, its gear will be bent,
Before its first TJi is due — OOOOOhh
Just give me a shaggy Shawnee,
Its a hell of a ship don't you see.
With skill and finesse it will fly with the best,
Oh give me a shaggy Shawnee — OOOOOhh
SAIGON OH SAIGON
Saigon oh Saigon's a hell of a place,
The organizations a fucking disgrace,
There's Captains & Majors and Light Colonels too,
Their hands in their pockets and nothing to do.
They stand on the runway they yell and they shout,
About many things they no nothing about,
For all that they're doing, they might as well be
Shoveling shit on the Isle of Capri.
(2)
I WAWTSD WINGS
I wanted wings til I got the goddamned thing,
Now I don't want them anymorefi
They taught me how to fly tl^n th^y sent me off to die,
Well, I've had a belly full of war;
You can keep the Special Forces I'll go gack to raising horses,
Distinguished Flying Crosses do not compensate for losses,
Buster*-
I wanted wings til I got the goddamned things,
Now I don!t want them anymore,
Yes, I'll take the dames let the rest go down in flajnes,
I have no desire to be burned;
Combat rpells romance til they shoot holes in my pants,
I'm not, a fighter I have learned;
Observe the OV-1 and I'll go back and have some fun,
I'd rather make a wom^n than bo shot down in a Grumman, Busier*—
Ivm toe young to die in the 21 I fly,
That's for the eager net for r»c.
If the rotor blades would stop, I would surely drop,
Laying in the Delta I would be:
No the ccrfiiies aren't for me so save them for the young H.P.
With my hand around a bottle you can keep your goddamned
ihrofctla* Buster-
I don't care to tour over Ben Cat and Bo Kour,
Ground fire always makes me lose my lunch,
I get an urge to pray when they holler, "troops away"
I'd rather be at home and with the bunch;
For theres one thing you can't laugh off,
When they shoot your tail plane half-off,
Ifd rather be hocie buster with my tail than with a cluster,
Buster-
They feed us lousy chow but we stay alive some how,
On dehydrated eggs and milk ^nd stew,
The rumor has it next they'll be dehydrating sex,
And thats the day I'll tell the coach I'm through;
For I've managed all the dangers, the shooting back of strangers
*
But when I get home late, I want my woman laid out straight, 0
Buster—
HHEMAN
Her father is a fireman - he puts out fires,
Her mother is a firemans wife - she puts out fires,
is a fire mans girl - she puts out too.
A men.
(3)
BLESS THEM ALL
1
Bless them all, Bless them all,
The long and the short and the- tall.
Bless old man Piasjcki for building this plane,
But I know a guy who is cursing in vain.
Ke took off with his balls to the wall,
Lost manifold pressure and all.
The Son of a 3itch - It ran out of Pitch,
Cheer up my lads, bless them all.
U
Bless them all, Bless them all,
The nexLls, the airspeed, +-he ball.
31es3 a.ll thosa instructors who taught us *o fly,
Sent us to soio and left us to die.
If eve:-.1 your blade tip should stall-
Well your in for one hell of a fall.
Buy lilli-^ or Violets for dear! chopper pilots,
Cheer up rny lads, Bless them all.
Ill
Bless them all, Bless them all
The long and the short and the tall.
Bless all the Ifojors and their bloody sons,
Bless all the Colonels, the fat headed ones.
ITm saying goodbye to then all,
The long and the short and the tall.
Here*s to you and lots others,
You can shove it up brothers.
Ifm going home in the fall.
SV/ING LOW
Swing low, sweet 707, comin1 for to carry me home,
Swing low, swe^t 707, comin1 for to carry me home.*
I looked down the Mekong and what did I see, comin* for to carry
me home,
A 707 comin1 after me, comin1 for to carry me home,
A big silver bird way up in the sky, comin1 for to carry me home,
Let me get on board and we'll fly high, comin1 for to carry me home.
Come in and land and carry me, comin1 for to carry me home,
Back to my wife and family, comin1 for te carry me home.
(4)
HALLALUIA
Oh Hallaluia, Oh Halleluia,
Throw a nickel on the grass, save a chopper pilots &sa.
Oh Halleluia, Oh Halleluia,
Throw a nickel on the gr^rs and you'll be savnd.
I.
I was cridsir.g down the Mekong doing sixty, and five per,
When a r-1.1 can.e from the hajor~0 won*tyou safe me Sir,.
Got throe holes in my rotor blades - my tanks aint got no gas,
Payday, hajrday, ^T^ay* I gob V.C.on my ass!!
II
I put the r?tch st5cJ: on .the floor, to me it looked all right,
Trio aiisieixi r&pA om* hundred, I really racked it tight.
The ^irff/.'r.e fart; a shudder, the engine gave a wheeze,
Mayday., i.Vyiay.. Hayoay, Crash instructions please!!
III.
I just fell through on final and the pilot gave a shout,
He was yelling at the C-rew Chief - Oh get those Bastards out!
I pulled in p3.tch and power - the IiPM did fall-
Mayday, feyday, Mayday, they did hear me call!!
IV.
They sent me down to Tan Hiep, they said will be a breeze,
But by th^ time I got thore, there v;ere V.C. in the trees.
My engine coughed and ^sputtered, it was too shot up to fly,
Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, I'm too young to diei!
V.
I climbed out from the Shawnee, loaded down with guns,
Struggling through the water, I thought my titae had come.
The other chopper landed, it was a pretty sight,
Bab3r, Baby, Baby, We'll see Saigon tonight!!
GIVE MY REGARDS
Give ray regards to Saigon, Remember me to Cholon too.
Tell all the girls down at the Tu Do Bar, that my tour here is
thru.
Tell them that Pm returning, back to the old Z.I.
Give cy regards to General Khanh, and tell him kiss my ass Good
bye*
(5)