Dave Keats songs are © copyright protected.

Wish I Was A Schoolboy Still

I'm leaving home, now I've come of age
First chapter's finished, now it's time to turn the page.
So long home town, goodbye friends and all.
Perhaps when we're some older we'll meet up in the way

Remember good times we had when we were young
Pinchin' farmers apples? As fast as hell we'd run
When we played soldiers we never shot to kill.
Wish I could go back. Wish I was a schoolboy still

I signed me name upon the dotted line
They gave me a gun an' suit, and they said that they were mine
Until the day I left alive or dead.
They didn't care about me as long as they got their rifle back.

Remember good times we had when we were young
Pinchin' farmers apples? As fast as hell we'd run
When we played soldiers we never shot to kill.
Wish I could go back. Wish I was a schoolboy still

That time next day I's on the boat an' gone.
Next thing I knew we had landed in Viet-Nam
The bush we hid. The sergeant he had said
To kill as many slit eyes as your rifle's holding lead

Remember good times we had when we were young
Pinchin' farmers apples? As fast as hell we'd run
When we played soldiers we never shot to kill.
Wish I could go back. Wish I was a schoolboy still

I hid my head and threw my rounds away
Told the boys back in the camp that I killed fifteen a day
Until the day I lied not low enough
Some yellow commie bastard put a bullet in my guts.

Remember good times we had when we were young
Pinchin' farmers apples? As fast as hell we'd run
When we played soldiers we never shot to kill.
Wish I could go back. Wish I was a schoolboy still

They sent me home not fit to fight
But when I hit my home town I just knew that things weren't right.
My friends you know that every one had gone
To seek out my vengeance with the dirty Viet Cong.

Remember good times we had when we were young
Pinchin' farmers apples? As fast as hell we'd run
When we played soldiers we never shot to kill.
Wish I could go back. Wish I was a schoolboy still.