1.
E
Whatcha gonna do about it,

Whatcha gonna do,

When the army of America 
      D
   is comin' after you?

D
Whatcha gonna do about it,

Whatcha gonna say,

When people from the draft board
          E
   try to send you far away?

   2.
E
Whatcha gonna think about it,

How you gonna feel,

When they argue that your draft
              D
   resistance simply isn't real?

D
Whatcha gonna do about it,

Where you gonna go,

If Canada won't take you
           E
   and the prisons overflow?

   3.
E
Wouldja fight in Israel

Or go defend Iran,

Or some supposed vital interest
      D
   in Afghanistan?

D
Deadly germs and killer gas

And anti-matter ray,

Giant solar microwaves
       E
   and mutant DNA...

   4.
E
We can fire lazer beams

And drop a neutron bomb,

All the weapons that we didn't
   D
   have for Viet Nam.

     D
Each war they say is diff'rent

But the people die the same.

Next time they give a war
   they'll say that
     C    B    E
     everybody came!

Prelude in H Sharp -- First web publication ©1997 Mar 17. Published to mindfulwebworks.com 2007 May 02. My notes here say this was written 1980 Jan 25, which would mean it was written at Tyler's Irwin Farm. But it seems to me it must have been written earlier than that; I don't know. We were still reeling from Viet Nam and the Draft and all that, obviously. The political map has changed a little since this was written. Afghanistan is not the USSR's Viet Nam anymore, and most significantly we're not in a position to think we should defend Iran anymore. But the spirit of things haven't changed that much... or enough. Some apparently got too much of a taste of the deadly gas in Iraq. I love America, more for the best of what it stands for than for what it actually is sometimes. Changed from the original ending, "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" in 1987; I wanted to move away from the borrowed poster-slogan. Use whichever you choose. Sing the whole thing twice, once with the first ending, once with the second.