Kill, kill, kill, your too-small classes

click…

Came to talk about the draft.

They got a building down New York City, it’s called Whitehall Street, where you walk in,

you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected.

I went down to get my physical examination one day, and I walked in, I sat down,

got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning.

`Cause I wanted to look like the all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted, I wanted to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from New York, and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds o’ mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said, ‘Kid, see the phsychiatrist, room 604.’

And I went up there, I said, ‘Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL!’ And I started jumpin up and down yelling, ‘KILL, KILL!’

And he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, ‘KILL, KILL!’ And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, ‘You’re our boy.’

[…]

I went over to the Sargent, said, ‘Sargent, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I’ve rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I’m sittin’ here on the bench, I mean I’m sittin here on the Group W bench ’cause you want to know if I’m moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein’ a litterbug.’ He looked at me and said,

‘Kid, we don’t like your kind, and we’re gonna send you fingerprints
off to Washington.’

-Arlo Guthrie