Malvina Reynolds: Song Lyrics and Poems  

Playing War

Notes: words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1964 Schroder Music Company, renewed 1992. Apparently written in response to the increasing play of war toy ads on children-oriented television programming.

There's a nameless war in Vietnam,
There's wars in many lands,
And my little boy in our back yard
Has a tin gun in his hands;
And the big toy makers in Buffalo
Are getting my boy set to go,
But I say No and the kids say No,
We're playing war no more.

Today it's a plastic tank or plane,
Tomorrow it's for real,
Today it shoots a wooden shot,
Tomorrow the bullet's steel.
And the buyers in the department store
Are getting my boy ready for war,
But I say No and the kids say No,
We're playing war no more.

Well, a little red wagon on the hill
Can pull his pal along,
But we want no little revolver gun
To shoot his buddy down.
The factories run in old New York
To get him ready for the dirty work,
But I say No and the kids say No,
We're playing war no more.

There's many a boy like my own boy
Who's lying in the mud,
And his good young life was cut away
While it was in the bud,
So the stores that offer death for play
Will have to get rich some other way,
Cause I say No and the kids say No,
We're playing war no more.

Well the Army brass and the C.I.A.
Are hardly grown up boys,
And they're playing now with atom bombs
As though they were plastic toys,
But the life of the world is on the throw,
We say No and the kids say No,
We say No and the kids say No,
We're playing war no more.

Malvina Reynolds songbook(s) in which the music to this song appears:
---- [none]

Other place(s) where the music to this song appears:
---- Broadside No. 50 (22 September 1964)

Malvina Reynolds recording(s) on which this song is performed:
---- [none]

Recordings by other artists on which this song is performed:
---- Martha Gaber: Martha Gaber (Love Records LRLP-23, 1970)