Lyrics:

“The Ballad of Ira Hayes” was written by Peter LaFarge and appears on the 1964 Johnny Cash album, Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian.

This is story song about a special kind of patriot.
Ira Hayes
Ira Hayes

Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinking Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Gather round me people there's a story I would tell
About a brave young Indian you should remember well
From the land of the Pima Indian
A proud and noble band
Who farmed the Phoenix valley in Arizona land
Down the ditches for a thousand years
The water grew Ira's peoples' crops
Until the white man stole the water rights
And the sparkling 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 drinking 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 walk back down again

And when the fight was over
And when Old Glory raised
Among the men who held it high
Was the Indian, Ira Hayes

Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinking Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Ira Hayes returned a hero
Celebrated through the land
He was wined and speeched and honored
Everybody shook his hand

But he was just a Pima Indian
No water, no home, no chance
At home nobody cared what Ira'd done
And when did the Indians dance?

Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinking Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Then Ira started drinking hard
Jail was often his home
They'd let him raise the flag and lower it
Like you'd throw a dog a bone!
He died drunk early one morning
Alone in the land he fought to save
Two inches of water in a lonely ditch
Was a grave for Ira Hayes

Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinking 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 lying thirsty
In the ditch where Ira died