Born on the Fourth of July

Lyrics

[Spoken Introduction] You know I, I really thought I had written the last thing I was going to write about Vietnam - i mean it's been over for a while now, and it's not as if I didn't write one or two when it was going on, so I was very surprised to find myself writing this song But I read a book about six months ago, it made me cry and made me determined to at least try to make a song of, it was written by a young fellow from Long Island named Ron Kovic, whom you may have heard address the democratic convention on it's final night, or you may have seen him on other television shows, or you may have read the book He went to Vietnam as a Marine, not once but twice, and the second time ran flat out of luck. He came home and he wrote the book about before, during, and since Vietnam, and he called it, very accurately — if a little ironically — 'Born on the Fourth of July' [Verse 1] As a schoolboy I played with a plastic grenade It was gray and with caps it was loaded In the dirt we would cry and dramatically die As it flew to the air and exploded As a young man my dream was to be a marine My flag was worth all I could bring it The country was young, when the anthem was sung Well it gave me the goosebumps to sing it [Chorus] I was born on the fourth of July No one more loyal than I When my country said so I was ready to go And I wish I'd been left there to die [Verse 2] When I landed in 'Nam, I was Great Uncle Sam I was fighting for God and my mother And I knew what to do when my first tour was through I signed up and went back for another But it all tumbled down when we ambushed the town In the night how the metal was flying We blew it to hell, really did our job well But just women and kids did the dying [Chorus] I was born on the fourth of July No one more loyal than I When my country said so I was ready to go And I wish I'd been left there to die [Verse 3] In the damn DMZ, it all ended for me The fighting broke out and we scattered One shot hit my heel, the last thing I feel The next hit my spine and it shattered In my hospital bed I could hear what was said And the word will stay with me forever With my whole life ahead, my body was dead And the word they were using was never [Chorus] I was born on the fourth of July No one more loyal than I When my country said so I was ready to go And I wish I'd been left there to die [Verse 4] Now I wheel myself down to the crossroads of town To watch the young girls and their lovers And my mind is afire, it's alive with desire Christ, I'd barely begun, now it's over In my wheelchair for life, my mechanical wife I'm supposed to be cheerful and stoic I'm your old tried-and-true, Yankee Doodle to you Clean-cut, paralysed and heroic [Chorus] I was born on the fourth of July No one more loyal than I When my country said so I was ready to go And I wish I'd been left there to die