Lyrics This World Goes 'Round and 'Round - Tom Paxton

Prime Ministers office, Prime Minister speaking
Greetings? This is the secretary of war
At the state department of the United States?
We have a problem, the companies want something done
About this sluggish world economic situation?
Profits have been running a little thin lately
And we, we need to stimulate some growth?
Now we know there's an alarmingly high number of young people Roaming around in your country with nothing to do
But stir up trouble for the police and damage private property
It doesn't look like they'll ever get a job?
It's about time we did something constructive with these people?
We've got thousands of 'em here too, they're crawling all over
The companies think it's time we all sit down
Have a serious get-together and start another war
The President, he loves the idea!
All those missiles streaming overhead to and fro
Napalm, people running down the road, skin on fire
The Soviets seem up for it
The Kremlin's been itching for the real thing for years
Wanna little going away present for [Incomprehensible]
Hell, Afghanistan's no fun, so what do ya say?
We don't even have to win this war
We just want to cut down on some of this excess population?
Now look, just start up a draft
Draft as many of those people as you can
We'll call up every last youngster we can get our hands on
Give 'em an hour or two to learn how to use an automatic rifle
And send 'em on their way, El Salvador, how 'bout Northern Ireland?
Or a "moderately repressive regime" in South America?
We'll just cook up a good Soviet threat story in the middle east?
We need that oil, we had Libya all ready to go
And Colonel Khadafy's hit squad didn't even show up
I tell ya, that man is unreliable
The Russians had their fingers on the button
Just like we did for that one?
Now just think for a minute, we can make this war so big, so big
The more people we kill in this war, the more the economy will prosper
We can get rid of practically everybody on your dole queue
If we plan this right
Take every loafer on welfare right off our computer rolls
Now don't worry about demonstrations, just pump up your drug supply
So many people have hooked themselves on heroin
And amphetamines since we took over, it's just like Vietnam
We had everybody so busy with LSD they never got too strong
Kept the war functioning just fine?
It's easy, we've got our college kids so interested in beer
They don't even care if we start manufacturing germ bombs again
Put a nuclear stockpile in their back yard
They wouldn't even know what it looked like
So how 'bout it? I mean, look, war is money
The arms manufacturers tell me
Unless we get our bomb factories up to full production
The whole economy is going to collapse
The Soviets are in the same boat
We all agree the time has come for the big one
So what do ya say? [incomprehensible]
That's excellent, we knew you'd agree
The companies will be very pleased