Can a song about a massacre ever be funny? Maybe only with a hundred years separation from the real event. This Tom Paxton gem was written late in the Viet Nam era when "the light at the end of the tunnel" phrase had been so over used it had become self parody.

GENERAL CUSTER
by Tom Paxton recorded on "How Come The Sun"

General Custer told me, we're going for a ride
Out along the Big Horn River, where the water is deep and wide.
Soon as I get my hair done, we will win the war;
Now go on out and tell the boys what they are fighting for.

Chorus:
He said, "Give somebody a medal.
Give somebody a three day pass.
Tell him 'bout a light at the end of the tunnel,
And tell him to hold his sass.
And pass me my lookin' glass."

Out in the buffalo moonlight, I thought I heard a bird.
One old Indian fighter went pale, said, "What was that I heard?"
Sixteen thousand nightengales stomping through the pass.
Tell that idiot matinee fool to get us out and fast.

Chorus:
But he yelled....

Dawn came up like taxes and what do suppose I see,
Every Indian in history, a-tapping his toes at me.
Things was lookin' shakey, some of them boys was large;
And what do s'pose old Custer done, you know he hollered, "Charge!"
Nobody told the Indians who old Custer was,
They commenced to stick to us like peaches stick to fuzz.
Nobody told the Indians they was supposed to run;
And just as they did old Custer in, what do s'pose he done

Chorus:
He said....

rich r