The Big Parade - 10,000 Maniacs

Written by：Jerome Augustyniak/Merchant Natalie/Peter Asher

Detroit

To DC

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

Oh potomac what you've seen

Abraham had his war too

But an honest war

Or so it's taught in school