Soldier Johny from Understudy by The Great Park

soldier johny

i’ll throw my self into the river
you better believe i would sell my liver
if i could just for one night lay with her
and come joyfully back home

she said some bright day who knows how long
all different people gonna get along
i need a little hope to carry on
until i make it home

well i pray you are right but my heart don’t know
how the blood that it pumps it jumps and it flows
it seems to have a mother fucking mind of it’s own
and cares not to clot back home

and they put men in the soil they put men in the ground
all the able bodied boys have been thrown out of town
you look for them there they can’t be found
they're never coming home

and oh me oh my i loved her so
it broke my heart just to see her go
and where she got to god only knows
but i pray she makes it a home

well my legs don’t leap and my voice is spent
i live hand to mouth step by step
my throat is dry and my eyes are wet
and i can’t see a way back home

so i make like a monkey i swallow a wrench
i chuck myself into the dirty old thames
i’ve had it up to here with this world of men
i can’t call this place my home

Includes lyrics from ‘Johny Has Gone For A Soldier’ from Best Loved American Folk Songs, collected and arranged by John and Alan Lomax, 1947.

• Acoustic
• acoustic folk
• folk
• problem folk
• singer-songwriter
• trouble folk
• Germany