The Ballad Of Ira Hayes - Live at Madison Square Garden, New York, NY - December 1969

Call him drunken Ira Hayes
 He won't answer anymore
 Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
 Nor the Marine that went to war
 Gather around me people there's a story I would tell
 About a brave young Indian that we should remember well
 From the tribe of the Pima Indian, a proud and peaceful band
 Who farmed the Phoenix valley in Arizona land
 Down the ditches for a thousand years
 The water grew Ira's peoples' crops
 'Till the white man stole the water rights
 And the sparklin' water stopped
 Now Ira's folks were hungry
 And their land grew crops of weeds
 When war came, Ira volunteered
 And forgot the white man's greed
 Call him drunken Ira Hayes
 He won't answer anymore
 Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
 Nor the Marine that went to war
 There they battled up Iwo Jima's hill
 Two hundred and fifty men
 But only twenty-seven lived
 To fight back down again
 And when that fight was over
 And when Old Glory raised
 Among the men to hold it high
 Was the Indian, Ira Hayes
 Call him drunken Ira Hayes
 He won't answer anymore
 Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
 Nor the Marine that went to war
 Ira Hayes returned a hero
 Celebrated through the land
 He was wined and speeched and honored
 And everybody shook his hand
 But he was just a Pima Indian
 No water, no crops, no chance
 At home nobody cared what Ira'd done
 And when did the Indians dance
 Then Ira started drinkin' hard
 Jail was often his home
 There they'd let him raise the flag and lower it
 Like you'd throw a dog a bone
 He died drunk early one mornin'
 Born in the land he fought to save
 Two inches of water in a lonely ditch
 It was a grave for Ira Hayes
 Call him drunken Ira Hayes
 He won't answer anymore
 Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
 Nor the Marine that went to war
 Yeah, call him drunken Ira Hayes
 But his land is just as dry
 And his ghost is lyin' thirsty
 In the ditch where Ira died
 (Thank you very much we've honored the American Indian as a sad song)