Kowtow

1928 Saigon, a heavy monsoon took a grip on the Mekong

there was something wrong

an air of fear in a colonised land started off by some offbeat

coolie gang

1968 Saigon, the sound of rotary blades, birds of prey

family men led astray, there was something wrong

biting the lips in the ranks

nervously glancing at the tanks rolling off the gang planks

can we make it pay, can we make it safe?

can we mak e thing clear on the new frontier

I don't wish to worry you

but and the mud and the madness

the bullets riddled this place with a history of sadness

the unsung heroes struck a chord deep in me

I was maybe six or seven when I saw it on TV

just Buddy and Charlie and you on your own

some guns a six pack and a patched up radio

no sense of sanity, is it safe to go alone?

no loving arms like you got back home

did you do the right thing?

did you do the right thing?

(come on where's the fighting spirit? dry your tears)

there's a man spitting poison at a girl 'bout seventeen

with a gun held at her head, to blow away her dreams

and I sometimes start to wonder if there's any hope at all

and after two world wars, you'd have thought we'd learnt by now

there are too many madmen in this world, too may trigger

happy weirdos

and the tears she cried streaming down her face

for a million unsung heroes

we're all loners in this world, always waiting for the lid to blow

and if the time it takes, takes too long, them it's off to fight we go

and at night I search my thoughts for any sanity left at all

and after three world wars, there'll be no more left at all...

we felt like pioneers in the fields of Tonking

we fought for all those years in the blood and the tears

we felt like pioneers on the west frontier (to be free)