Walking on a Thin Line -- Huey Lewis and the News

Sometimes in my bed at night  I curse the dark and a pray for light
And sometimes, the light's no consolation  Blinded by a memory
Afraid of what it might do to me  And the tears and the sweat only mock
my desperation


Don't you know me I'm the boy next door  The one you find so easy to ignore
Is that what I was fighting for?  Walking on a thin line  Straight off the front line
Labeled as freaks loose on the streets of the city Walking on a thin line
Angry all the time  Take a look at my face, see what it's doing to me


Taught me how to shoot to kill  A specialist with a deadly skill
A skill I needed to have to be a survivor  It's over now or so they say
Well, sometimes, it don't turn out that way
Cause your never the same when you've been under fire


Don't you know me I'm the boy next door  The one you find so easy to ignore
Is that what I was fighting for?  Walking on a thin line
Straight off the front line  Labeled as freaks loose on the streets of the city
Walking on a thin line  Angry all the time  
Take a look at my face, see what it's doing to me                                        (sing365.com)


This song is about an American soldier who is trained as a sniper in the Vietnam War, and must face his demons when he returns home.                                             (songfacts.com) 




The U.S. government viewed involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam as part of their wider strategy of containment. The North Vietnamese government and Viet Cong viewed the conflict as a colonial war, fought initially against France, backed by the U.S., and later against South Vietnam, which it regarded as a U.S. puppet state. American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina beginning in 1950.                                                                                                                                    (wikipedia)



            

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