John Brown went off to war to fight on a foreign shore,
His mama sure was proud of him.
He stood so straight and tall in his uniform and all,
His mama's face broke out into a grin.
"Oh, son, you look so fine, I'm glad you're a son of mine,
Make me proud to know you wear the gun.
Do what the captain says, lotta medals you will get,
We'll put 'em on the wall when you get home."
That old train pulled out, John's ma began to shout,
Telling everybody in the neighborhood,
"That's my son that's about to go, he's a soldier now, you know?"
She made well sure her neighbors understood.
She got a letter once in a while, her face broke into a smile,
She showed 'em to the people from next door.
They bragged about her son with his uniform and gun
In this thing
1 she called a good, old-fashioned war.
Then the letters ceased to come, for a long time they did not come,
Ceased to come for about ten months or more.
Then, when a letter finally came, saying, go down and meet the train,
Your son is coming back from the war.
She smiled and she went right down, she looked up and all around,
She did not see her soldier son in sight.
When all the people passed, she saw her son at last.
When she did, she could not believe her eyes.
Oh, his face was all shot off and his hands were blown away
And he wore a metal brace around his waist.
He whispered kind of slow in a voice she didn't know
And she couldn't even recognize his face.
"Oh, tell me, my darling son, tell me what they've done.
How is it that you've come to be this way?"
He tried his best to talk, but his mouth could hardly move
And his mother had to turn her face away.
"Don't you remember, ma, when I went off to war,
You thought it was the best thing I could do?
I was on the battleground, you were home acting proud,
You wasn't there standing in my shoes."
"Well, I thought when I was there, Lord, what am I doing here
Trying to kill somebody or die trying?
But the thing that scared me most, when my enemy came close,
I could see that his face looked just like mine."
"And I could not help but think through the thunder-rolling stink
That I was just a puppet in a play
And through the roar and smoke the string, it finally broke
And a cannonball blew my eyes away."
As he turned away to go, his mother was acting slow
Seeing the metal brace that helped him stand,
But, as he turned to leave, he called his mother close
And he dropped his medals down into her hand.
1
It is difficult to tell one one way or the other, but this phrase has been transcribed elsewhere as "[a]nd these things".