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about

I wrote this song about the 1969 draft lottery. The number that were selected ranged form 1 to 366 and were associated with your birthday. If you were male and the right age you had a number picked. A low number meant your chances of being drafted were very high.
I got the number 366. The best you could get.

lyrics

Verse 1:
Why did they make us play that game
No winners you could only lose
They signed us up on the day we were born
It wasn’t something you got to choose
Nobody I knew ever wanted to play
But we could only wait for that call
All of us were living out on the edge
Waiting for a hammer to fall

Verse 2:
Didn’t seem to be a way out of the game
Though I kept trying year after year
No matter what I did everything was looking
A whole lot worse than I feared
The rules kept changing - you never knew
How they’d choose the players they’d get to own
Those were the ones they put in a grinder
The rest of us, they just might leave alone

Chorus 1:
They put numbers in a barrel Gave it a mix
Everybody got a number. I got 366
The final number. The best it could be
I won my life, in a lottery

Verse 3:
I didn’t want to watch ‘em playing with numbers
Didn’t like what they were doing it for
But after a while someone whispered to me
They’d given me the very highest score
I should have been happy about 366
But I kept wondering what I could say
To whoever it was who had to play in my place
What kind of price did they have to pay

Chorus 2:
They put numbers in a barrel gave it a mix
Everybody got a number. I got 366
The very final number. best I could get
I’m just not ready to get over it yet

Outro:
It really happened I swear it really happened
Hard to believe that it happened back then
If we’re not careful, if we don’t pay attention
They’re going to find a way to play it again

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Daniel Weinstein image

Daniel Weinstein Mitchells Island, Australia

I started writing songs in my late 60s and have written quite a few. During lockdown in 2020 I happened upon a beat up old blue journal that I recognised from my travels in the early 70s. In it I discovered, much to my surprise, 7 completed songs and at least a dozen songs in progress that I'd completely forgotten. Now I can confidently say I've been a songwriter for over 50 years. ... more

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