Afternoon Matinee: Protest - Lyndon Johnson Told The Nation

Performed by Tom Paxton

I got a letter from L.B.J

It said, "This is your lucky day"

It's time to put your khaki trousers on

Though it may seem very queer

We've got no jobs to give you here

So we are sending you to Vietnam

And Lyndon Johnson told the nation

Have no fear of escalation

I am trying everyone to please

Though it isn't really war

We're sending fifty thousand more

To help save Vietnam from Vietnamese

I jumped off the old troop ship

And sank in mud up to my hips

I cussed until the captain called me down

Never mind how hard it's raining

Think of all the ground we're gaining

Just don't take one step outside of town

And Lyndon Johnson told the nation

Have no fear of escalation

I am trying everyone to please

Though it isn't really war

We're sending sixty thousand more

To help save Vietnam from Vietnamese

Every night the local gentry

Slip out past the sleeping sentry

They go to join the old V.C.

In their nightly little dramas

They put on their black pajamas

And come lobbing mortar shells at me

And Lyndon Johnson told the nation

Have no fear of escalation

I am trying everyone to please

Though it isn't really war

We're sending seventy thousand more

To help save Vietnam from Vietnamese

We go round in helicopters

Like a bunch of big grasshoppers

Searching for the Viet Cong in vain

They left a note that they had gone

They had to get down to Saigon

Their government positions to maintain

Well, here I sit in this rice paddy

Wondering about Big Daddy

And I know that Lyndon loves me so

Yet how sadly I remember

Way back yonder in November

When he said I'd never have to go

And Lyndon Johnson told the nation

Have no fear of escalation

I am trying everyone to please

Though it isn't really war

We're sending a hundred thousand more

To help save Vietnam from the Vietnamese

© EMI Music Publishing

~ from LyricsMode ~