As King on these workmen's wages
I got luggin'a foreign job.
But I get no offers,
Just to comment from the from the war zone heaven. Haven't You?
My duty's there!
There where times when I was solo so
I took some comfort there.
da da die die die d

The story:

Details? oh GAWD...

PART I
The Boxer. I loved that song. I bought my very first LP "Bridge Over Troubled Water" so I could listen to the sixth track repeatedly in the sanctity of my room. In the 10th grade, I wrote a paper and submitted it for both History and English. (how brilliant was that?) In the heart of the Vietnam era, I compared the simplistic lyrics of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" to what I considered a much more powerful and complex anti-war song. “The Boxer”.
The paper was a masterpiece. My teenage angst flowed from that Smith-Corona. Reams of crumpled typing sheets and carbon paper littered the floor surrounding my desk. I quoted the lyrics of this very verse. Exhausted, I submitted my masterpiece. Both teachers gave me an A. I have the manuscript in my attic, preserved in Saran Wrap. You would think that at least the hippie dippy History teacher could have enlightened me.

PART II
Move along...nothing more to see here...uh..
Fast forward to November 2003. My friend Kim and I went to the Simon & Garfunkel "Old Friends" concert in Washington DC. WOW! We decided to get together with our guitars and do some harmonizing of our own. She had some songbooks and we had great fun...until The Boxer. Kim was having trouble with the harmony so I sang a verse while she took a drink of green tea. Yupper. THAT verse. She snorgled the green tea. Then she made me sing it again. "Are you serious?" When she turned the song lyrics toward me, I was confused. "There must be a misprint. This verse is missing and there's something here from another song." We argued until I finally took her to the computer and made her look it up on Paul Simon's website. I stared at it. ::blink blink:: It was so different. It changed the entire crux of the song I had so closely analyzed. Paul Simon's version is about a New York runaway pervert who whines for his mommy because he is freezing then gets into a fight. Whoop-dee-do. Mine tracks a young man who protests the war, is drafted, goes to Nam, fights bravely, and dies. Kim took pity, gave me a “there, there”, and did not humiliate me further.
Go to Paul Simon's site and exchange my verse for his. We both think my lyrics make “The Boxer” a fine anti war song.
See if you agree.