East Of Woodstock, West Of Viet Nam - Tom Russell

I slept through the Nineteen Sixties

I heard Dory Previn say

But me I caught me the great white bird

To the shores of African

Where I lost my adolescent heart

To the sound of a talking drum

Yeah, east of Woodstock, west of Viet Nam

And on the roads outside Oshogbo

Lord I fell down on my knees

There were female spirits in old mud huts

Iron bells ringing up in the trees

And an eighty year old white priest

She made Juju all night long

Yeah, east of Woodstock, west of Viet Nam

Raise high the roof beams carpenter boy

Yeah, we’re coming through the rye

In the cinema I saw the man on the moon

I laughed so hard I cried

It was somewhere in those rainy seasons

That I learned to carve my song

Yeah, east of Woodstock, west of Viet Nam

Oh Africa, Mother Africa

You lay heavy on my breast

You old cradle of civilization

Heart of darkness blood and death

Though we had to play you running scared

When the crocodile ate the sun

Yeah, east of Woodstock, west of Viet Nam

Well, I think it’s going to rain tonight

I can smell it coming off the sea

As I sit here reading old Graham Greene

I taste Africa on every page

Then I close my eyes and see those red clay roads

And it’s sundown and boys I’m gone

Yeah, east of Woodstock, west of Viet Nam

Raise high the roof beams carpenter boy

Yeah, we’re coming through the rye

It was a movable feast of war and memory

A dark old lullaby

It was the smoke of a thousand camp fires

It was the wrong end of a gun

Yeah, east of Woodstock, west of Viet Nam

Yeah, east of Woodstock, west of Viet Nam