Fourth Day Of July
1973 · Blue Thumb BTS-44 · USA
- Artist
- Tom Rapp
- Title
- Fourth Day Of July
- Release
- Stardancer
- Year
- 1973
- Label
- Blue Thumb # BTS-44
- Format
- LP · Album
- Language
- English
- Country
- USA
- Genre
- Rock · Folk Rock
- Primary theme
- Peace, Protest & Anti-War
Annotation
The song "Fourth Day of July" (Blue Thumb Records # BTS-44), taken from Tom Rapp's 1972 album Stardancer, his second solo effort. He is well known as the leader of the 60s / 70s Psychedelic Folk group Pearls Before Swine. Taking an anti-war position, the narrator told the story of US troops returning home from Vietnam on American Independence Day, as the "broken children of Vietnam". Suggested by koeeoaddi_there
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Lyrics
English: And it came to pass on the first day of July / The last man home from Vietnam was going to arrive... / And when they looked upon the decks, there was not a man inside... / A line of broken children, all from the ship a-coming / The light of death was in their eyes / The broken children of Vietnam... / Like a war beyond control, to Washington / At dawn, a line of ghostly children upon the White House lawn / Grown men did turn away / Not to see it anymore, to see the burning child running to the White House door / No one found a place to hide / The burning children of Vietnam.... / All across America a line ten miles long / The dead children all coming home / From the land of Vietnam to men who got too far away from what was done in their name... / It rains upon America on the fourth day of July
About the artist
American singer-songwriter (Pearls Before Swine), born 8 March 1947 in Bottineau, North Dakota; died 11 February 2018 in Melbourne, Florida. [Source: Wikipedia]