Gung Ho

On a field of red, one gold star Raised above his head Raised above his head He was not like any other He was just like any other And the song they bled Was a hymn to him Awake my little one The seed of revolution Sewn in the sleeve Of cloth humbly worn Where others are adorned The question is raised Raised above his head Was he of his word? Was he a good man? For his image fills the southern heart With none but bitterness Above the northern plain The great birds fly Over the paddy fields Where the people kneel As the fathers toil Yet not for their own And the wheel groans There before a grass hut A young boy stood His mother lay dead His sisters cried for bread And within his young heart The seed of revolution sewn He grew into a man Not like any other Just like any other With a beard, the color of rice A face the color of tea Who shared the misery Of other men in chains Escaped the guillotine To serve the whole people To suffer them unity Though they asked it not Who fought colonialism, imperialism Who remained awake When others did not Who penned like Jefferson Let independence ring And the cost, hold on And the cart of justice turns Slow and bitterly And the people were crying Plant that seed, plant that seed And they crawled on their bellies Beneath the great beast And filled the carts with bodies Where once had been their crops, crops And the great birds swarm Spread their wings overhead And his mother dead And the typhoons and the rain And the jungle in flames And the orange sun But none could be more beautiful Than Vietnam Nothing was more beautiful Than Vietnam His heart stopped beatin' And the wheel kept turning And the words he bled Were a hymn to them And the people keep crying And the men keep dying And the swollen heart weeps And it's so beautiful, so beautiful Oh, so beautiful And yet the question is raised Raised above his head Was he of his word? Was he a good man? For his image fills the southern heart With none but bitterness One more turn And it keeps on turning One more turn, one more turn One more turn, one more turn One more turn on the wheel One more revolution One more turn of the wheel Gung Ho, Gung Ho, Gung Ho, Gung Ho Gung Ho, Gung Ho, Gung Ho, Gung Ho Gung Ho, Gung Ho, Gung Ho, Gung Ho Gung Ho, Gung Ho. Gung Ho, Gung Ho Gung Ho, Gung Ho, Gung Ho, Gung Ho Gung Ho, Gung Ho, Gung Ho, Gung Ho Give me one more revolution One more turn of the wheel One more revolution One more turn of the wheel