His mama was a midnight woman   His daddy was a drifter drummer   One night they put it together   Nine months later came the little black bummer      He was a laid back lump in the cradle   Chewing the paint chips that fell from the ceiling   Whenever he cried he got a fist in his face   So he learned not to show his feelings      He was a pig-tail puller in grammar school   Left back twice by the seventh grade   Sniffing glue in Junior High   And the first one in school to get laid      He was a weed-speed pusher at fifteen   He was mainlining skag a year later   He'd started pimping when they put him away   In jail he changed from a junkie to a hater      And just like the man from the precinct said   ?Put him away, you better kill him instead   A bummer like that is better of dead   Someday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head?      They threw him back on the street, he robbed an A and P   He didn't blink at the buddy that he shafted   And just about the time they would have caught him too   He had the damn good fortune to get drafted      He was a-one bait for Vietnam   You see they needed more bodies in a hurry   He was a cinch to train 'cause all they had to do   Was to figure how to funnel his fury      They put him in a tank near the D.M.Z.   To catch the gooks slipping over the border   They said his mission was to search and destroy   And for once he followed and order      One sweat-soaked day in the Yung-Po valley   With the ground still steaming from the rain   There was a bloody little battle   That didn't mean nothing   Except to the few that remained      You see a couple hundred slants   Had trapped the other five tanks   And had started to pick off the crews   When he came on the scene   And it really did seem   This is why he'd paid those dues      It was something like a butcher going berserk   Or a sane man acting like a fool   Or the bravest thing that a man had ever done   Or a madman blowing his cool      Well he came on through like a knife through butter   Or a scythe sweeping through the grass   Or to say it like the man would have said it himself   Just a big black bastard, kicking ass      And just like the man from the precinct said   ?Put him away, you better kill him instead   A bummer like that is better of dead   Someday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head?      When it was over and the smoke had cleared   There were a lot of V.C, bodies in the mud   And when the rescued men came over   For the very first time they found him smiling   As he lay in his blood      They picked up the pieces   And they stitched him back together   He pulled through though   They thought he was a goner      And it force them to give him   What they said they would   Six purple hearts   And the Medal of Honor      Of course he slouched as the chief white honkey said   ?Service beyond the call of duty?   But the first soft thought was passing through his mind   ?My medal is a mother of a beauty?      He got a couple of jobs with the ribbon on his chest   And though he tried he really couldn't do 'em   There was only a couple of things that he was really trained for   And he found himself drifting back to 'em      Just about the time he was ready to break   The V A stopped sending him his checks   Just a matter of time 'cause there was no doubt   About what he was going to do next      It ended up one night in a grocery store   Gun in hand and nine cops at the door   And when his last battle was over   He lay crumpled and broken on the floor      And just like the man from the precinct said   ?Put him away, you better kill him instead   A bummer like that is better of dead   Someday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head?      Well he'd breathed his last, but ten minutes past   Before they dared to enter the place   And when they flipped his riddled body over they found   His second smile frozen on his face      They found his gun where he'd thrown it   There was something else clenched in his fist   And when they pried his fingers open   They found the medal of honor   And the Sergeant said   (Where in the hell, he get this?)      There was a stew about burying him in Arlington   So they shipped him in box to Fayette   And they kind of stashed him in a grave in the county plot   The kind we remember to forget      And just like the man from the precinct said   ?Put him away, you better kill him instead   A bummer like that is better of dead   Someday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head?