With God On Our Side

Oh, my name it ain't nothin',
My age it means less.
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest.
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
That the land that I live in
Has God on its side.

Oh, the history books tell it,
They tell it so well:
The cavalries charged,
The Indians fell.
The cavalries charged,
The Indians died --
Oh, the country was young,
With God on its side.

The Spanish-American
War had its day,
And the Civil War, too, was
Soon laid away.
And the names of the heroes
I was made to memorize,
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.

The First World War, boys,
It came and it went;
The reason for fighting
I never did get.
But I learned to accept it,
Accept it with pride;
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.

The Second World War, boys,
It came to an end.
We forgave the Germans,
And then we were friends.
Though they murdered six million,
In the ovens they fried,
The Germans now, too, have
God on their side.

In the 1960s, came the Viet-Nam War;
Can somebody tell me
What we're fightin' for?
Too many young men died,
Too many young mothers cried;
So I ask the question,
Was God on our side?

I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life.
If another war comes,
It's them we must fight.
To hate them and fear them,
To run and to hide,
And to accept it all bravely,
With God on our side

Through many a dark hour
I been thinkin' 'bout this,
How Jesus Christ was
Betrayed by a kiss.
But I can't think for you,
You have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot had
God on his side.

Now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell.
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell.
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor;
And if God is on our side,
He'll stop the next war.

-Robert Allen Zimmerman