Digital Tradition Mirror

Come and Join the Air Force (2)

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

Come and Join the Air Force (2)

Come on and join the Air Force, and get your flying pay.
You never have to work at all, just fly around all day.
While others toil and study hard, and soon grow old and blind,
We'll take the air without a care, and you will never mind.

Chorus: You'll never mind, you'll never mind,
Oh, come and join the Air Force,
And you will never mind!

Come on and get promoted, as high as you desire,
You're riding on a gravy train, when you're an Air Force flyer.
But just when you're about to be a general you'll find,
The engines cough, the wings fall off, and you will never mind.

And when you loop and spin her, with an awful tear,
You find yourself without your wings, but you will never care.
For in about two minutes more, another pair you'll find,
You'll fly with Peter and his angels sweet, and you will never mind.

You're flying over the ocean, you hear your engine spit,
You see your prop come to a stop, the Goddamn engine's quit.
The ship won't float, you cannot swim, the shore is miles behind,
Oh, what a dish for the crabs and fish, but you will never mind.

I fly up to the Yalu, in my F-Eighty-Six,
And here's on thing that you can send to Congress in your TWX,
I've only got one engine, Jack, and if that bastard quits,
It will be up there all by itself, 'cause I will shit and git!

Oh, someday you'll meet a MiG-15, he'll shoot you down in flames,
No use in bellyaching and calling the bastard names,
You'll lose your wings, don't worry Mac, another pair you'll find,
You'll fly with Pete and the angels sweet, and you will never mind.

Oh, we're just a bunch of Air Force lads, and we don't give a damn,
About the groundling's point of view, and all that sort of ham.
We want a hundred thousand ships, of each and every kind,
And now we've got our own Air Force, so we will never mind!

     This song has been around since the 1930s, when Fokkers instead
of MiGs shot you down.  A "TWX," pronounced "twix," is a message.
The verse from the Korean War and the final verse (the Air Force
became a separate service in 1948) are clearly newer additions,
but that's where it stops_it seems Vietnam didn't add a verse. CB

PW

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!