East of the village and west of the treesnUp on the high ground where the soldiers would standnCooling themselves in the sulfurous breezenSeemed like something to losennThe houses were filled with flattering hostsnIn tight shirts and compliments for soldiers and ghostsnUp on the high ground blowing their loadsnFor the cowgirls left back homennHow can you say there’s nothing to losenSinging your broken parakeet bluesnOn the side of the highway lighting the fusenBlack like the crows from the cattlecar fumesnnYeah, up on the highway near 29 PalmsnI saw busloads of soldiers rolling alongnAnd people like crows on the side of the roadnWaving goodbye to lovers and sonsnnThe soldiers were boys, there were brown ones and fat onesnWhite ones and cool ones and camouflaged black onesnSweet ones and cruel ones but I didn’t seenAnybody I thought had money like mennSome were sleeping, some dreaming, some quietly weepingnOut of 29 Palms the buses kept creepingnRight through the desert and out to the shoren29 Palms won’t see ’em no morennHow can you say there’s nothing to losenSinging your broken parakeet bluesnOn the side of the highway lighting the fusenBlack like the crows from the cattlecar fumesnnHow can you just wave farewell to themnKnowing what you know and where you have beennOn the side of the highway lighting the fusenSinging your broken parakeet bluesnHow can you say there’s nothing to losennEast of the village and west of the treesnUp on the high ground where the soldiers would standnCooling themselves in the sulfurous breezenWe all crowed those parakeet bluesn