John Wayne Is Big Leggy

Album: Battle Hymns for Children Singing (1982)
Charted: 11
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  • Shotgun, gimme
    Gimme low down fun boy
    Okay, yeah, showdown
    Shotgun, gimme
    Gimme low down fun boy
    Okay, yeah, showdown
    Shotgun, gimme
    Gimme low down fun boy
    Okay, yeah, showdown
    Showdown

    Take me away
    He's as big as a ranch
    Take me away
    He's as tough as they come
    (J-J-J-J-J-John Wayne)
    Take me away
    He's so long
    Take me away
    You know he's never wrong
    (J-J-J-J-J-John Wayne)

    He stands so high
    It's enough to make any red skin cry
    He knows what's right and he knows that God is with him
    'Cause he is right, Big Leggy lives
    J-J-J-J-J-John Wayne

    John Wayne in lovers lane
    Making whoopee with his squaw
    But his bullet starts a-gettin' in the way
    It's making his life a bore
    So she says to him
    Take off that thing
    It's getting right between us
    Now listen, honey
    I can't do that, no even for you, my sweetness
    Now Big John
    If that's a fact, then how d'you propose we do our act?
    If that's the way it's gonna be, get the hell out of my tepee

    Now speckled hen
    Just stop your squawkin'
    Big Bad Rooster's doin' the talking
    I know a trick we ought to try
    Turn right over, you'll know why

    He stands so high
    It's enough to make any red skin cry
    He knows what's right and he knows that God is with him
    'Cause he is right, Big Leggy lives
    J-J-J-J-J-John Wayne

    You wonder why he stands so high
    It's just the space between him and the sky
    You wonderin' why he stands so high
    Just the space between him and the sky
    You wonderin' why he stands so high
    Just the space between him and the sky
    You wonderin' why he stands so high
    Just the space between him and that sky

    Take me away
    John Wayne is Big Leggy
    Take me away
    John Wayne is Big Leggy
    Take me away
    John Wayne is Big Leggy
    Take me away
    John Wayne

    He stands so high
    It's enough to make any red skin cry
    He knows what's right and he knows that God is with him
    'Cause he is right, Big Leggy lives
    J-J-J-J-J-John Wayne

    Shotgun, gimme
    Gimme low down fun boy
    Okay, yeah, showdown
    Shotgun, gimme
    Gimme low down fun boy
    Okay, yeah, showdown
    Shotgun, gimme
    Gimme low down fun boy
    Okay, yeah, showdown
    Showdown
    Showdown Writer/s: Jeremy Healy, Katherine Garner, Paul Caplin
    Publisher: BMG Rights Management, Round Hill
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 8

  • Lecheffre from Wherever You Aren’t@Common Sense is Dead. Jeremy Healy had read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown (suggest you do as well), and was inspired to write the song.

    Quote: It was an allegory for treatment of which the white settlers used, but on the Native American Indians. However, I wrote it like John Wayne having anal sex with a squaw. I thought this was hilarious!

    Wayne is a stand-in for white settlers, colonizers. Speckled Hen is an avatar for Native Americans.

    It very much is about the things Anon from the US wrote. Most New Wave 80’s pop had leftist leanings. Folks seem to forget that because they made dance music.
  • Glyn Davies from UkChrist the pampered brigade are out in force, it's a f--king Pop song get over it. I swear to god these people wake up trying to find ways to be offended, it must give the sad little muffins a purpose in life.
  • Ava from Monroe"I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility." - John Wayne. Whoever wrote this incredibly silly rejoinder (a person who's married Latina women can't be racist? Latinas can be white, that makes no sense) sounds like they probably hold similar views. Sorry, the Confederacy lost and it's never coming back.

    No comment on the song itself, but the defensive language is extremely telling.
  • Common Sense Is Dead. from Uk Anon from USA, please shut your mouth and give your arse a go, it's sh*t probably makes more sense than the pile you spewed here. It's a tongue in cheek song about sh*gging with a hint of the attitude towards native Americans but none of the sh*te you dropped about disrespecting her in her own home. He 's a cowboy, so wouldn't be parted from his gun, and so when she said it was in the way, he moved it behind him so he could take her from behind. People read way too much into things. Not every f'ing thing is racist!!!
  • Mo Johnny Yen Riaz from Manchester UkAlways thought it was “and he knows that god is with him cos he’s white” and I guess that’s what they really meant anyway.
  • Anon from UsaThe song isn’t an homage to John Wayne; the John Wayne they mention is an exemplar, a stereotype. The song absolutely is about racism and the ‘cowboy’ image of not just the United States, but of any person or group that uses themselves as the yardstick by which to measure and place some kind of meritorious value on other peoples, cultures, and countries. For example, Speckled Hen is good enough to have sex with, but she doesn’t merit respect, even when she puts her foot down and asserted her rights to her own preferences in her own teepee. She doesn’t even merit an explanation for why it is okay to invalidate her wishes, as shown in the line, ‘turn right over, you’ll know why’. What gives this stereotype called John Wayne the right to do all this? Because he’s White/right.

    This is 100% a song about racism, and all of the baggage that comes with it, like manifest destiny.
  • Anne from LondonI thought it was 'he knows that God is with him cos he's white. John Wayne was known to hold racist views.
  • Daniel from Uk, United KingdomThis song is about sexual intercourse - specifically the 'doggy' position as a solution to a troublesome gunbelt!
see more comments

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