Nobody Gets Off the Bus:
|
Texts made available by the Sixties Project, are generally copyrighted by the Author or by Viet Nam Generation, Inc., all rights reserved. These texts may be used, printed, and archived in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright law. These texts may not be archived, printed, or redistributed in any form for a fee, without the consent of the copyright holder. This notice must accompany any redistribution of the text. A few of the texts we publish are in the public domain. For information on a specific text, contact Kalí Tal. The Sixties Project, sponsored by Viet Nam Generation Inc. and the Institute of Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, is dedicated to using electronic resources to provide routes of collaboration and make available primary and secondary sources for researchers, students, teachers, writers and librarians interested in the 1960s. |
Song Lyrics by David Rodriguez
The True Cross
When we left the Saigon embassy
The last ones out the door
We fire-bombed their paperwork
To cover up their war
We partied on the Arizona
Until after twenty days
When the lights of San Diego
Woke us from our drunken haze
And then the general calls us back, he says,
"We need you to assist"
When they paid us off in unmarked bills
I guess we got the gist
With two vatos out of Houston
And one from San Antone
In the bloody streets of Salvador
They left us on our own
Now we don't meddle in their politics
We could not take the pain
Ain't the way we analyze
Ain't the way we train
We know twelve dialects of Spanish
Plus the one in Panama
We're the MVP's for the CIA
PTSD and all
So you can keep my bronze medallions
You can stick my silver stars
All I need is something I can spend
In this Guatemalan bar
Fourteen rounds, a Belgian Browning
And a two-star general's pay
And I'll keep right on a-killin'
for the United S. of A.
So as I look out on these mountains
From the nightclub Carribelle
Some officer is ordering
civilians shot to hell
And I think of my own country
How she treated me so bad
And how we finally found a way to live
The best we ever have
Compañeros out of Saigon
The last to leave that day
But we been twenty years a killin'
for the United S. of A.
The Rifle and the Song
(To Victor Jara)
And so I turn my head
To where the four winds blow
To all the books I've read
And all the things I know
But the mystery lives on
All my friends they ask
Have you forgotten your soul
How can you sing about hunger
In a rock'n'roll song?
But the mystery lives on
The dancer or the dance
The sunset or the dawn
I can't discern the difference
Between the rifle and the song
They sanctify Karl Marx and revolution
and the American record charts
And austere solutions
But the mystery lives on
While they're starving in Africa
In Indochina, in South America, in Appalachia
But the mystery lives on
The dancer or the dance
Ah, the sunset or the dawn
I can't discern the difference
Between the rifle and the song
And so I turn my head
To where the four winds blow
To all the books I've read
And all the things I know
But the mystery lives on.
A long time figure on the Austin folk and rock scene, David Rodriguez was recently voted Best Male Songwriter in a poll of Austin musicians, critics and writers. Rodriguez has long been active in politics and this interest seeps through into almost all of his music in one way or another. "I'm one of those people who thinks that walking across the street is a political act," he told one reporter. "I have to get out there and be involved, and that's what I draw from when I write." His new album on Dejadisc, The True Cross--which includes the two songs printed above--was recorded live at Chicago House in Austin, the current haven for acoustic troubadours. Music City Texas named it the Best Independent Cassette of the year. The True Cross is available on compact disc. It can be ordered from Dejadisc, 537 Lindsey Street, San Marcos, TX 78666; (512) 392-6610. DJD 3202.