Playing War

There's a nameless war in Vietnam,

There's wars in many lands,

And my little boy in our back yard

Has a tin gun in his hands;

And the big toy makers in Buffalo

Are getting my boy set to go,

But I say No and the kids say No,

We're playing war no more.

Today it's a plastic tank or plane,

Tomorrow it's for real,

Today it shoots a wooden shot,

Tomorrow the bullet's steel.

And the buyers in the department store

Are getting my boy ready for war,

But I say No and the kids say No,

We're playing war no more.

Well, a little red wagon on the hill

Can pull his pal along,

But we want no little revolver gun

To shoot his buddy down.

The factories run in old New York

To get him ready for the dirty work,

But I say No and the kids say No,

We're playing war no more.

There's many a boy like my own boy

Who's lying in the mud,

And his good young life was cut away

While it was in the bud,

So the stores that offer death for play

Will have to get rich some other way,

Cause I say No and the kids say No,

We're playing war no more.

Well the Army brass and the C.I.A.

Are hardly grown up boys,

And they're playing now with atom bombs

As though they were plastic toys,

But the life of the world is on the throw,

We say No and the kids say No,

We say No and the kids say No,

We're playing war no more.