Let’s Keep It Straight
Why are folks so afraid?
Hi all,
Thank you for joining me for today’s song, “Let's Keep It Straight”, by John McCutcheon (1993). If you’d like to hear the song before you read about it, I’ve included a YouTube video below the article.
Below, you’ll find my interpretation of the lyrics (written in italics). Comments and questions are welcome. For Japanese students, vocabulary words in bold are provided in Japanese below. TOEFL (PBT) 450+, Eiken 2, CEFR B1.
Gay people in the military?
(818 words)
“Don't ask, don't tell” was a rule in the U.S. military from 1993 to 2011. It meant that soldiers couldn't talk about being gay. If they did, they might lose their job as a soldier. It was like saying, “We won't ask if you're gay, but you can't tell us either.” Some people thought this rule was fair because it let soldiers keep their jobs, even if they were gay. Others thought it was unfair because everyone should be able to be honest about who they are. Eventually, the rule changed, and now anyone can serve in the U.S. military, no matter who they love.
The song begins from the point of view of a solider who is in training to become a Marine. He is then sent to the Cherry Point air base in North Carolina.
I left home for boot camp the day I turned eighteen
It was ten weeks of hell, but I made a Marine
Stationed at Cherry Point when the call came to war
I was eager to go it's what I was trained for
The soldier is sent with others in his division, the 101st, to the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
So I shipped out to Dubai with the Hundred and First
And, though we never saw action, we knew ten times worse
To “see action” means to experience actual fighting in combat. Here, the soldier never did have that experience, but there was something even more dangerous:
In bone-chilling danger we lived every day
We found one of the guys in our unit was gay
In other words, due to the stereotypes he believed, he thought that having a gay person in your group was more dangerous and scary than being in combat.
“Let’s keep it straight” means…?
The chorus of the song says, “Let’s keep it straight”. This has two meanings in this song. The first, “Let’s make a situation clear” or “We need to come to an agreement about something.” The second implies that we all need to be straight, in other words, heterosexual.
Let's keep it straight when you carry a gun
It's not what you do, boys, it's just who you've done
“It’s just who you’ve done” means who you have had sex with.
The fate of our nation, it's power and might
Depend on who soldiers might sleep with at night
.
The second verse is told from the viewpoint of a soldier during the Vietnam War.
On patrol in the jungle, my buddies and I
Came upon, to our horror, the village, Mi Lai
In the village of My Lai, there was a horrible massacre in 1968. American soldiers killed between 300-500 women, children, and elderly. When the American public heard about this atrocity, it increased opposition to the war.
Here, the songwriter is being sarcastic, saying there was one thing worse - if they had been gay.
Midst the dead and the dying we heard one old man say
"They came and they killed, but, thank God, they weren't gay!"
Just regular people
Gay men and women make up 10% of the population, have regular occupations and responsibilities, just like everyone else. Who they love is none of your business, which means “that’s personal, and you shouldn’t be asking.”
We work in your office, we teach in your schools
We pray in your churches, we live by the rules
We win your elections, we die in your wars
Who we choose to love is no business of yours
The next verse is told by a woman who is walking alone at night and is afraid.
All alone on the street in the quickening night
Miles from home as my heart fills with fright
No place for a woman to be out this way
There's a man in the shadows, God, I hope that he's gay!
She hopes that he’s gay because then he would not want to attack her.
How ironic
The songwriter explains that he finds this situation ironic. Government leaders say that gay men can’t be in the military because what would happen if they tried to approach straight men? That’s why they have to create separate facilities (showers and toilets) for straight men and for gay men. The irony is that this fear of being attacked is what women have always experienced.
Our leaders and generals all carry on,
"We need separate showers and barracks and johns"
Men frightened of men, I just laugh through my tears
To think it's what women have gone through for years
At the end of the song, there is a quote that was used by the United States Army as a recruitment slogan from 1980 to 2001. It conveys the message that by joining the army, individuals have the opportunity to reach their full potential, both personally and professionally. McCutcheon added this to show irony that the military did not allow people to be themselves.
I guess I misunderstood when I saw on TV,
"Join Today's Army, be all you can be"
Question
In your culture, are people allowed to be themselves or are there cultural or legal restrictions?
Vocabulary
bone-chilling 恐るべき
buddies 仲間
midst 内 (amidst)
pray 祈る
quickening 早まる
fright 怖じけ
facilities 設備
barracks 兵舎
johns トイレ
potential 可能
Sources
Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (2024c, March 12). Don’t ask, don’t tell. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/event/Dont-Ask-Dont-Tell . Accessed 29 March 2024.
Want to know how to be an ally for LGBTQ people? https://louisehaynes.substack.com/p/ally-the-ballad-of-lauri-carlton
Learn more about John McCutcheon at his website https://www.folkmusic.com/
More songs by John McCutcheon:
https://louisehaynes.substack.com/p/nobody-knows
https://louisehaynes.substack.com/p/deportees-have-names
https://louisehaynes.substack.com/p/we-all-are-ukranian-now
Louise, I love how clearly you unfold what this song truly reveals. I remember so well — in 1993, the year this was written, Germany still had its §175 criminalizing homosexuality (between men). I always sensed they simply could not imagine women having sex without a man present, so we were not even considered in that law. It was revoked only in 1994, and men persecuted under it now receive reparation.
On paper, Germany looks liberal today — strong anti-discrimination laws. Yet this has not built a society free from homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, or any of the -isms. In fact, from my experience, these last 5–10 years have seen it worsen. As large companies began implementing "forced" Diversity programs to balance a deeply tilted playing field, resentment grew. White, male, Christian privilege felt threatened — and the backlash slid underground.
Now, discrimination lives in subtler forms. On the surface: all correct. Yet give it one round of drinks, and masks slip. The contempt many still hold toward people like me — non-binary, queer, lesbian — becomes unmistakable.
Laws alone do not reshape the generations raised inside open -phobias and -isms. I witness this daily: beneath the polished surface, barely a shift. Almost not one iota.
So thank you again for your reading of this song — it matters. We name it, we keep it visible.
Too bad there's so much homophobia.