Xmas in February - Lou Reed

Sam was lyin' in the jungle

Agent orange spread across the sky like marmalade

Hendrix played on some foreign jukebox

They were praying to be saved

Those gooks were fierce and fearless

That’s the price you pay when you invade

Xmas in February

Sam lost his arm in some border town

His fingers are mixed with someone’s crop

If he didn’t have that opium to smoke

The pain would never ever stop

Half his friends are stuffed into black body bags

With their names printed at the top

Xmas in February

Sammy was a short order cook in a Short order black and blue collar town

Everybody worked the steel mill but

The steel mill got closed down

He thought if he joined the Army

He’d have a future that was sound

Like no Xmas in February

Sam’s staring at the Vietnam Wall

It’s been a while now that he’s home

His wife and kid have left, he’s unemployed

He’s a reminder of the war that wasn’t won

He’s the guy on the street with the sign that reads

«Please help send this Vet home»

But he is home

And there’s no Xmas in February

No matter how much he saves