Trail of Tears

Annotation — Draft Songs

Obscure East Coast Hip Hop artist, born Louis Dorley in Brooklyn, New York, USA. The song "Trail of Tears" (Pot to Piss In) - the title of course referred to the forced displacement of Native Americans by the United States government (1830-1850), featured in the later part of the song. This track also contained a verse about the Vietnam war, recalling the draft and referencing the US president Lyndon B. Johnson: "nineteen sixty-five, after the draft captured a class... Johnson ships our young men". It then moved onto the My Lai Massacre - the mass murder of between 300-500 civilians in the South Vietnamese area known as "Pinkville", containing the hamlets, known as My Lai 4 and My Khe 4, and throughout the area of Song My, by US forces on 16 March 1968: "countless Vietnamese died at Lieutenant William Calley's cold order". It noted the indiscriminate killing: "both daughters and sons killed and carried to mass graves".

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English: In this the year of our lord, nineteen sixty-five A.D / After the draft captured a class of every guy eighteen and beyond / To free Vietnam's warring provinces from the devious arms / And the fear of the horde of horrid communists / Johnson ships our young men to Da Nang, barely trained / He really sent them to hang, mostly too scared to aim / And there to claim vengeance against the senseless killing tally / Countless Vietnamese died at Lieutenant William Calley's cold order / Both daughters and sons killed and carried to mass graves / They sprayed a cascade of mortar from guns / And when the horror was done, the same folks who sent / All of our sons to execute their souls ordered them hung

About the artist

Obscure East Coast Hip Hop artist, born Louis Dorley in Brooklyn, New York, USA.

Themes

Indigenous Rights · Da Nang · My Lai · Guns · Draft · LBJ · Cold War · Anti-Calley · Communism · Anti-Government

In collections

Draft Songs · My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs · Rap / Hip Hop Songs