Tom Russell Lyrics
"East Of Woodstock, West Of Viet Nam"

I slept through the Nineteen Sixties, I heard Dory Previn say
But me I caught me the great white bird, to the shores of Africay
Where I lost my adolescent heart, to the sound of a talking drum
Yeah, East of Woodstock, West of Vietnam

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 Vietnam

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 Vietnam

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 Vietnam

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 Vietnam

Raise high the roof beams carpenter boy, yeah we're coming through the rye
It was a moveable 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 Vietnam.

Yeah, East of Woodstock, West of Vietnam