Blood, Sweat, and Fire
American History in Verse
Blood, Sweat, and Fire
The Wonderful World of Disney gave us a Sunday evening rest,
We anticipated Ed Sullivan’s line up of guests
Until Huntley and Brinkley had breaking news
Of another bloody episode of what we were going through,
There was a march on the Pentagon,
Pressure was mounting and Johnson was sweating.
While the politicians were working to save face
Deafening chants were demanding an end to the war.
Something started with a cab driver in Newark,
Cops didn’t like the way he drove the car,
Said he was driving it up the down street and so they took him in.
Somebody from CORE told somebody from the Freedom Party and they went back to family and friends.
By and by everybody was around the precinct and soon windows were smashed in and that sealed the fate.
Newark had a spell of looting and then it quiet down,
Only to be rallied up by bottles and Molotov’s
But wait;
At the same time Cleveland was hot and their issues hit the street,
And just a little more than a week later,
Detroit went up in flames;
An ember flicked over into Milwaukee and they ended up doing the same,
Everybody was on fire,
It seemed like it was the end days
Fear, anger, hatred, and power
Was about to bring America down
Something, somewhere had to change.
The Kerner Commission tried to figure out why
We were fussin and fightin and burning down the cities,
Finally, they admitted that there were two different societies.
It was concluded that this great nation of ours
Created, condoned and maintained a system of despair,
And the only way to repair the damage that had been done
Would be a total redistribution of wealth benefitting everyone,
But that wasn’t gonna happen
President Johnson pushed it to the side
Because now, it was about another war,
All attention turned
To injustice, carnage, and bombs
Upon the defenseless and the poor
No, not here,
But on the other side of the world,
In South Viet-Nam.
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