The Big Parade lyrics

Song information

Artist: 10000 Maniacs
Album: Blind Man's Zoo

Lyrics

[ music: jerome augustyniak/words: natalie merchant ]

Detroit to d.c. night train, capitol, parts east
Lone young man takes a seat
And by the rhythm of the rails, reading all his mother's mail from a city boy in a jungle town postmarked saigon
He'll go live his mother's dream, join the slowest parade he'll ever see
Her weight of sorrows carried long and carried far
"Take these, tommy, to the wall."

Metro line to the mall site with a tour of japanese
He's wandering and lost until a vet in worn fatigues takes him down to where they belong
Near a soldier, an ex-marine with a tattooed dagger and eagle trembling, he bites his lip beside a widow breaking down
She takes her purple heart, makes a fist, strikes the wall
All come to live a dream, to join the slowest parade they'll ever see
Their weight of sorrows carried long and carried far, taken to the wall

It's 40 paces to the year that he was slain
His hand's slipping down the wall for it's slick with rain
How would life have ever been the same if this wall had carved in it one less name?
But for christ's sake, he's been dead over 20 years
He leaves the letters asking, "who caused my mother's tears, was it washington or the viet cong?"
Slow deliberate steps are involved
He takes them away from the black granite wall toward the other monuments so white and clean

O, potomac, what you've seen
Abraham had his war too, but an honest war
Or so it's taught in school