Bummer
Harry Chapin Lyrics

His mama was a midnight woman
His mother was promiscuous and engaged in illicit activities late at night.

His daddy was a drifter drummer
His father was a traveling musician with no permanent home.

One night they put it together
They had a one-night stand.

Nine months later came the little black bummer
Nine months later, Harry Chapin was born, whom his parents considered a burden.

He was a laid back lump in the cradle
He was a relaxed baby.

Chewing the paint chips that fell from the ceiling
He ate chips of paint that fell from the ceiling, which is dangerous.

Whenever he cried he got a fist in his face
Whenever he cried, he was beaten.

So he learned not to show his feelings
To avoid getting hurt, he stopped showing emotions.

He was a pig-tail puller in grammer school
He bullied others by pulling their pigtails during elementary school.

Left back twice by the seventh grade
He failed seventh grade twice and had to be held back.

Sniffing glue in Junior High
During Junior High, he inhaled glue, which is harmful to health.

And the first one in school to get laid
He lost his virginity before anyone else in his school.

He was a weed-speed pusher at fifteen
At fifteen, he was selling marijuana and amphetamines.

He was mainlining skag a year later
After a year, he graduated to injecting heroin.

He'd started pimping when they put him away
Before he was arrested, he became a pimp.

In jail he changed from a junkie to a hater
While in prison, he became resentful and angry.

And just like the man from the precinct said:
As predicted by a police officer.

"Put him away, you better kill him instead.
He is so dangerous that he should be killed.

A bummer like that is better of dead
Someone like him would be better off dead than alive.

Someday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head."
He is a ticking time bomb that could only be dealt with by killing him.

They threw him back on the street, he robbed an A & P
After his release from prison, he robbed a grocery store.

He didn't blink at the buddy that he shafted
He had no empathy for betraying someone he had once considered his friend.

And just about the time they would have caught him too
He was about to get caught by the authorities.

He had the damn good fortune to get drafted
He avoided being incarcerated for his crimes by being drafted into the military.

He was A-One bait for Vietnam, you see they needed more bodies in a hurry
Due to a shortage of military personnel, he was considered an expendable soldier for the war in Vietnam.

He was a cinch to train cause all they had to do
His angry and violent personality made him easy to train for military combat.

Was to figure how to funnel his fury
The only challenge was to direct his temper to fight against the enemy.

They put him in a tank near the D M Z
He was placed in a tank near the Demilitarized Zone.

To catch the gooks slipping over the border
His mission was to identify and attack Vietnamese soldiers who crossed the border.

They said his mission was to Search and Destroy
His primary mission was to search for and destroy enemy soldiers.

And for once he followed and order
He obeyed an order given to him.

One sweat-soaked day in the Yung-Po Valley
During a hot day in the Yung-Po Valley.

With the ground still steaming from the rain
The ground was emitting steam due to the high temperature, even though it had rained.

There was a bloody little battle that didn't mean nothing
The skirmish held little significance.

Except to the few that remained
The battle only mattered to the few that survived it.

You see a couple hundred slants had trapped the other five tanks
The Vietnamese soldiers had trapped five tanks of American soldiers.

And had started to pick off the crews
They started to pick off and kill the American soldiers in the tanks.

When he came on the scene and it really did seem
When he appeared in the battlefield, it looked like he could make a difference.

This is why he'd paid those dues
He had to fight and endure all of his previous experiences to make a meaningful difference in this battle.

It was something like a butcher going berserk
He was fighting and killing like a crazed individual.

Or a sane man acting like a fool
He had gone insane and had started acting foolishly.

Or the bravest thing that a man had ever done
What he had done was the bravest thing that any human being could have accomplished.

Or a madman blowing his cool
He had lost his sanity and was losing control.

Well he came on through like a knife through butter
He went through the battlefield easily like a sharp knife cutting through butter.

Or a scythe sweeping through the grass
He was like a scythe cutting through the long grass easily.

Or to say it like the man would have said it himself:
Or, in his own words.

"Just a big black bastard kicking ass!"
He was successful in the battlefield and unafraid to declare it in a crass way.

When it was over and the smoke had cleared
After the battle, when everything had calmed down.

There were a lot of VC bodies in the mud
There were many Vietnamese soldier corpses in the mud.

And when the rescue men came over for the very first time
When the rescue team arrived for the first time after the battle.

They found him smiling as he lay in his blood
They found him bleeding and injured, but still smiling.

They picked up the pieces and they stitched him back together
Medical teams performed surgery on him and tried to save his life.

He pulled through though they thought he was a goner
He survived the surgery despite the odds not being in his favor.

And he forced them to give him what they said they would
He demanded that the military give him the medals he had earned.

Six purple hearts and the Medal of Honor
He received six Purple Hearts and the Medal of Honor for his military service.

Of course he slouched as the chief white honkey said:
Of course, he was not proud, as the military high-ranking officer (who was white) awarded him his medals.

"Service beyond the call of duty"
The officer praised him for his outstanding performance in the battle.

But the first soft thought was passing through his mind
He had a light-hearted thought that crossed his mind.

"My medal is a Mother of a beauty!"
He was excited about having a beautiful medal.

He got a couple of jobs with the ribbon on his chest
He had some job opportunities thanks to his military record.

And though he tried he really couldn't do 'em
He tried to do the jobs, but he didn't have the right skills or mindset.

There was only a couple of things that he was really trained for
His only real training was for combat and war.

And he found himself drifting back to 'em
He realized he was meant for war and started to drift back towards it.

Just about the time he was ready to break
He was almost ready to give up and break down.

The V A stopped sending him his checks
The Veteran's Administration stopped sending him his payment checks.

Just a matter of time 'cause there wasn't no doubt
It was only a matter of time because there was no way out.

About what he was gonna to do next
He already knew what he was going to do next.

It ended up one night in a grocery store
He ended up robbing a grocery store one night.

Gun in hand and nine cops at the door
He was carrying a gun and nine police officers were trying to get in.

And when his last battle was over
When his final struggle ended.

He lay crumpled and broken on the floor
He was injured and dying on the store floor.

Well he'd breathed his last, but ten minutes past
He died, but it was ten minutes before anyone was brave enough to enter the store.

Before they dared to enter the place
Before the police officers entered the store.

And when they flipped his riddled body over they found
When they turned his body over.

His second smile frozen on his face
His face was frozen in a second smile.

They found his gun where he'd thrown it
They found his gun where he had dropped it.

There was something else clenched in his fist
He had something clenched tightly in his hand.

And when they pried his fingers open they found the Medal of Honor
When they opened his hand, they found that he was holding the Medal of Honor tightly.

And the Sergeant said: "Where in the hell he get this?"
The Sergeant wondered how he had gotten the medal.

There was a stew about burying him in Arlington
There was a lot of controversy regarding his burial place in Arlington Cemetery.

So they shipped him in box to Fayette
Instead, they shipped his body in a box to Fayette.

And they stashed him in a grave in a county plot
He was buried in an unmarked grave in a public cemetery.

The kind we remember to forget
It was the type of grave and burial that people don't like to remember.