I tried, I went down to the recruiting center and I talked to them, and I thought about it, but at the end of the day, I think I was genetically inclined to be a musician.' He then goes on to instruct the audience in singing the horn parts: 'We've got enough people in here to get a bitchin' horn section, so let's cut the audience down the middle. On the live album Ben Folds Live, Folds introduces the song to the audience by saying: 'This one goes out to anyone who actually signed up and is in-is gone into the armed forces. The clean version is sometimes referred to as the 'We Got the 'Fuck' Out edit'. 'Well I was thinking about joining the army.' 'Benjamin, what are you doing in there?' I should join the Army.Īnd umm, for those of you who know the lyrics from the song I derived them, except for the rhyming part which I setup myself, I derived it from the way it actually went down.

It was at that time that I decided in my bedroom I decided while listening to Elvis Costello in 1986 that maybe I shouldn't wait tables and do this old lady job anymore, maybe. So I threw my drum set, which is the instrument that I flunked on, into Lake Osceola in the middle of University of Miami and I took a Greyhound bus, I don't shit you, it was a Greyhound bus back home and I worked with a bunch of old ladies in a grocery store for about 18 months. And I had a broken hand, presumably because I had clocked that ass.

I flunked the test because I got delivered to the test in a police car at six o'clock in the morning with stitches in my nose and stitches in my mouth. after a semester cause I flunked a class because I flunked one test. And I got a scholarship and then I lost a scholarship. This one's about my really horrible experience trying to get through college. Here is Folds's explanation from a recording at Enmore: The song deals with indecision, independence, conflict, and freedom, and contains many memorable moments, including the opening line ('Well I thought about the army, dad said 'Son, you're fucking high!'') and the bridge, which consists of a horn ensemble.įolds has explained at live performances that the entire song is based on personal experiences, with a few exceptions (most notably that he never grew a mullet). The song is extremely popular among fans of the band and even during the band's break up, the song was still almost always performed at Ben Folds' solo concerts.

Ben folds army sheet music