Harry Chapin - Bummer Lyrics

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His mama was a midnight woman

His daddy was a drifter drummer

One night they put it together

Nine months later came the little black bummerHe was a laid back lump in the cradle

Chewing the paint chips that fell from the ceiling

Whenever he cried he got a fist in his face

So he learned not to show his feelingsHe was a pig-tail puller in grammer school

Left back twice by the seventh grade

Sniffing glue in Junior High

And the first one in school to get laidHe was a weed-speed pusher at fifteen

He was mainlining skag a year later

He'd started pimping when they put him away

In 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 dead

Someday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head."They threw him back on the street he robbed an A & P

He didn't blink at the buddy that he shafted

And just about the time they would have caught him too

He had the damn good fortune to get draftedHe was A-One bait for Vietnam you see they needed more bodies in a hurry

He was a cinch to train cause all they had to do

Was to figure how to funnel his furyThey put him in a tank near the D M Z

To catch the gooks slipping over the border

They said his mission was to Search and Destroy

And for once he followed and orderOne sweat-soaked day in the Yung-Po Valley

With the ground still steaming from the rain

There was a bloody little battle that didn't mean nothing

Except to the few that remainedYou see a couple hundred slants had trapped the other five tanks

And had started to pick off the crews

When he came on the scene and it really did seem

This is why he'd paid those duesIt was something like a butcher going berserk

Or a sane man acting like a fool

Or the bravest thing that a man had ever done

Or a madman blowing his coolWell he came on through like a knife through butter

Or a scythe sweeping through the grass

Or 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:

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"Put him away you better kill him instead.

A bummer like that is better of dead

Someday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head."When it was over and the smoke had cleared

There were a lot of V C bodies in the mud

And when the rescued men came over for the very first time

They found him smiling as he lay in his bloodThey picked up the pieces and they stitched him back together

He pulled through though they thought he was a goner

And it force them to give him what they said they would

Six 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 chest

And though he tried he really couldn't do 'em

There was only a couple of things that he was really trained for

And he found himself drifting back to 'em

Just about the time he was ready to break

The V A stopped sending him his checks

Just a matter of time 'cause there was no doubt

About what he was going to do nextIt ended up one night in a grocery store

Gun in hand and nine cops at the door

And when his last battle was over

He 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 dead

Someday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head."Well he'd breathed his last but ten minutes past

Before they dared to enter the place

And when they flipped his riddled body over they found

His second smile frozen on his faceThey found his gun where he'd thrown it

There was something else clenched in his fist

And when they pried his fingers open they found the Medal of Honor

And the Sergeant said: "Where in the hell he get this?"There was a stew about burying him in Arlington

So they shipped him in box to Fayette

And they kind of stashed him in a grave in the county plot

The 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 dead

Someday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head."

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