10,000 Maniacs - The Big Parade lyrics

Detroit to D.C. night train Capitol, parts East Lone young man takes a seat And by the rhythm of the rails Reading all his mother's mail From a city boy in a jungle town Postmarked Saigon He'll go live his mother's dream Join the slowest parade he'll ever see Her weight of sorrows carried long and carried far Take these Tommy to the wall Metro line to the Mall site with a tour of Japanese He's wandering and lost until a vet in worn fatigues Takes him down to where they belong Near a soldier, an ex-Marine With a tattooed dagger and eagle trembling He bites his lip beside a widow breaking down She takes her Purple Heart Makes a fist, strikes the wall All come to live a dream To join the slowest parade they'll ever see Their weight of sorrows carried long and carried far Taken to the wall It's 40 paces to the year that he was slain His hand's slipping down the wall for it's slick with rain How would life have ever been the same If this wall had carved in it one less name? But for Christ's sake, he's been dead over 20 years He leaves the letters asking Who caused my mother's tears Was it Washington or the Viet Cong? Slow deliberate steps are involved He takes them away from the black granite wall Toward the other monuments so white and clean Potomac, what you've seen Abraham had his war too, but an honest war Or so it's taught in school