Red -

On a late Tuesday afternoon

The sun shone grey in the Massachusetts sky

Red walked into his living room

Found his mother with a tear in her eye

Times have changed, or so it seemed

Boys became men at the age of seventeen

Red was one of those, oh you know

What choice did they have other than to go?

So they went one by one

They found no comfort from that Vietnam sun

They wiped the sweat and blood from their face

And all they wondered when to find their saving grace

Each and every day you know they watched their brothers fall

They drink heavy at night and try to forget it all

Didn’t know if they would rather be alive or dead?

Oh this is the story of a man named Red

Telling tales of darkness

No legless man is harmless

Heartlessly described by a gun

Oh I can smell the gunpowder

The quiet cries getting louder

All this pain echoes in his head

This is the story of a man named Red

He walks the streets alone now

He can’t quite understand how

He was the one to make it home

He came out just as he went in

Oh no, no, no if you could only see within

He lies awake and looks at his wife

Motionless and helpless

She has never felt this so but she knows what it’s like

Living with these emotions each and every day

He still hears the orders calling calling, «Fire away!»

Yeah, yeah, no.

Taken by the government yeah, no

One by one they went

But they didnt come back

Well I’m telling tales of darkness

No legless man is harmless

Heartlessly described by a gun

Oh I can smell the gunpowder

The quiet cries getting louder

All this pain echoes in his head

This is the story of a man named Red

The story of a man named Red

Well they couldn’t have resisted

I guess the government insisted, yea

That their new best friends, oh that their new friends

Should die in their arms, die in their arms, yea

Oh no