Let Us Begin (what Are We Making Weapons For?) Lyrics

Let Us Begin (what Are We Making Weapons For?)

This song was first released on the One World Album. It is the only album it
appears on.

I am the son of a grassland farmer
Western Oklahoma
nineteen forty three
I always felt grateful to live in the land of the
free
I gave up my father to South Korea
The mind of my brother to
Vietnam
Now theres a banker who says I must give up my land
There are
four generations of blood in this topsoil
Four generations of love on this
farm
Before I give up I would gladly give up my right arm

What are we
making weapons for
Why keep on feeding the war machine
We take it right
out of the mouths of our babies
Take it away from the hands of the
poor
Tell me, what are we making weapons for

I had a son and my son
was a soldier
He was so like my father, he was so much like me
To be a
good comrade was the best that he dreamed he could be
He gave up his future
to revolution
His life to a battle that just cant be won
For this is not
living, to live at the point of a gun
I remember the nine hundred days of
Leningrad
The sound of the dying, the cut of the cold
I remember the
moments I prayed I would never grow old

What are we making weapons
for
Why keep on feeding the war machine
We take it right out of the
mouths of our babies
Take it away from the hands of the poor
Tell me,
what are we making weapons for

For the first time in my life I feel like
a prisoner
A slave to the ways of the powers that be
And I fear for my
children, as I fear for the for the future I see
Tell me how can it be were
still fighting each other
What does it take for a people to learn
If our
song is not sung as a chorus, we surely will burn

What are we making
weapons for
Why keep on feeding the war machine
We take it right out of
the mouths of our babies
Take it away from the hands of the poor
Tell me,
what are we making weapons for

Have we forgotten
All the lives that
were given
All the vows that were taken
Saying never again
Now for the
first time
This could be the last time
If peace is our vision
Let us
begin

Have we forgotten
All the lives that were given
All the vows
that were taken
Saying never again, never again
Now for the first
time
This could be the last time
If peace is our vision
Let us begin,
let us begin

Words and music by John Denver