Alice In Chains: The Rooster Meaning

The Rooster Lyrics

Ain’t found a way to kill me yet
Eyes burn with stinging sweat
Seems every path leads me to nowhere
Wife and kids 'n household pet
Army green was no safe bet
The bullets scream to me from somewhere

Yeah they come to snuff the rooster, oh...

1. anonymous

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   Jan 6th 2011 !⃝

   Its about Jerry Cantrell Dad nickname rooster, If you watch the video its his father in it!!
2. anonymous

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   Dec 4th 2010 !⃝

   The pattern the spent shell casings make resembles that of a roosters tail, hence the nickname!!
3. stevo2440

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   Aug 7th 2010 !⃝

   After reading the other interps about Vietnam, it is obvious when he sings "they spit on me in my homeland"... crystal clear
4. davo188

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   May 10th 2010 !⃝

   the ROOSTER was a distinct and unique mark on the MH-60 machine gun made by a cirtain company so not all of them had this marking in the vetenam war and became informous as nobody actually knew who was marking these weaponds, the military try'd to put a stop to it but the ROOSTERS kept coming.
5. anonymous

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   May 5th 2010 !⃝

   I don't know whether this interpretation of the meaning of Rooster makes any sense, but I heard somewhere that the machine gun that Jerry's father used in the Vietnam War would fire off rounds so fast that the bullets created a long orange-like stream. As rounds stopped being fired and the gun slowed down, the last rounds fired out of the gun began to arch, almost making what appeared to be the look of a rooster tail (especially if being fired at the enemy downhill). The tail of a rooster by the way, is arched and has a redish color. Anyone wanna tell me their thoughts on that?
6. anonymous

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   Apr 26th 2010 !⃝

   they say snuff the rooster. rooster is a brand of nasal snuff. i think thats kind of ironic and funny that they worded it that way.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
7. anonymous

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   Apr 10th 2010 !⃝

   this song is about a boy who is singing as if he was his dad in the war. then during the chorus it goes back to the boy saying "no no no, you know he aint gonna die" get it?? its an awesome some! but yeahhh
   
   -allison :)

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
8. anonymous

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   Apr 10th 2010 !⃝

   you obviously was not alive during that time period. soldiers were indeed spit on literally by anti-war protesters.
9. anonymous

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   Mar 24th 2010 !⃝

   Whoever wrote that "they spit on me in my homeland" refers to how anti-war protesters would treat a soldier... you have it completely backwards.
   
   Anti-war does not imply anti-soldier. If anything it implies the opposite. The anti-war stance is arrived at out of compassion for soldiers, not anger.
   
   Think about it: if you didn't want to send the person to war in the first place, would you spit on them when they returned, or embrace them? On the other hand, if you sent them to fight, and then when they returned didn't bother to thank or support them... well, that's "spitting" on them. I think it refers to the government which used the soldiers to fight their battle, and then gave them nothing in return.
10. anonymous

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    Mar 5th 2010 !⃝

    They spit on me, in my homeland. That says a lot.
11. anonymous

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    Dec 20th 2009 !⃝

    The rooster was a nickname given to a Marine in Vietnam (not his father btw) who was an expert marksman with almost any weapon. The Marine wore an eagles feather in his cover, thus the nickname of Rooster. The Vietnamese then had a bounty on the Rooster, so in order to trick the Vietnamese Marines everywhere started wearing eagle, chicken, and geese feathers in their covers to confuse the enemy. The Rooster was yet another example of why Marines are feared everywhere, they are trained to kill, with anything.
12. anonymous

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    Nov 27th 2009 !⃝

    While the Marines had a valiant service record in Vietnam this song doesn't refer to them. Rather it's a double reference to Jerry Cantrell's father, who served in Vietnam with the US Army's 101st Airborne division(reference 1) as a MH-60 Machine gunner(reference 2).
    
    1) The shoulder insignia of the 101st airborne is a screaming bald eagle. The Vietnamese had, for the most part, never seen a bald eagle and so they referred to the soldiers of the 101st as "chicken" or "rooster" men. The 101st had acquired such a fearsome reputation that Vietnamese commanders frequently referred to the "rooster" men and often told their soldiers to avoid combat with the rooster men, as such encounters would lead to certain death. The title "rooster men" is a subject of intense pride for the men who served in Vietnam with the 101st.
    
    2) The second reference refers to a squad's MH-60 machine gunner. Given the weight of the weapon soldiers carrying them were forced to walk/move with their back's straight, even when under fire, and generally couldn't crouch as easily as other soldiers. So as the song goes "walking tall machine gun man..."
13. tripjav210

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    Aug 7th 2009 !⃝

    to who said carlos hathcock is the rooster, you my friend are an idiot. carlos hathcock is white feather, not rooster.
14. anonymous

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    Jul 1st 2009 !⃝

    The rooster is Carlos Hathcock the famous marine sniper who was never captured or killed.
15. pocco

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    Jun 4th 2009 !⃝

    I think it should be obvious. The Viet Cong were so hungary, they were trying to "snuff the rooster" to eat for dinner. But when they realized they were getting wasted by the U.S. soldiers, they would scream "no he ain't gonna die" because they had to go back to their main objective - take out their enemy...
    
    It's sort of like that cartoon where the Rooster is mostly singing the song, but you get little glimpses into the other farm activities as they sing their parts...
    
    I'm getting hungary.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway

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