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The Little Generals

Malvina Reynolds
Language: English


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[1962]
Lyrics and music by Malvina Reynolds
Testo e musica di Malvina Reynolds

Malvina Reynolds.
Malvina Reynolds.
All the little generals are running out of war,
Oh, my, It's enough to make you cry;
They've all these little khaki colored guns and tanks,
And all the money waiting in the U.S. banks,
But when they start an action, people say "No thanks",
And it's hard to get a war these days.

All the little generals are running out of war,
Oh, my, It's enough to make you cry;
They're sitting on their build-up till they get a pain,
They march the soldiers up the hill and down the hill again,
But logistics they get rusty when they're standing in the rain,
And it's hard to get a war these days.

All the little generals are running out of war,
Oh, my, It's enough to make you cry;
They paddle out to Cuba and get drowned in the bay, [1]
They start a thing in Laos, but the folks don't want to play,
And even up in Holy Loch, the kids cry, "Go away!"
And it's hard to get a war these days.

All the little generals are running out of war,
Oh, my, It's enough to make you cry;
They take the mighty atom bombs and tie them up with bows,
And Teller puts on perfume so they smell just like a rose,
But they smell like Hiroshima when the fall-out blows,
And it's hard to get a war these days.

Thank Heaven--It's hard to get a war these days.
Additional Note:
[1] On the lead sheet, this line is "It looked like fun in Cuba but the missiles went away,".

Contributed by daniela -k.d.- - 2007/10/28 - 10:22


Note:

- Secondo gli accordi stipulati nel corso della seconda conferenza di Ginevra (1961-1962) il Laos non avrebbe dovuto essere coinvolto nella guerra in Indocina. Governo ed esercito laotiani restarono di fatto neutrali, ma siccome la principale via di approvigionamento dell’esercito nord-vietnamita (il famoso “Cammino di Ho Chi Mihn”) passava in Laos, gli americani bombardarono a tappeto quell’area del paese.

- Holy Loch è una località sulla costa scozzese che fino al 1992 fu sede di una base per sottomarini nucleari americani. Tra il 1958 e il 1963 e poi tra il 1980 e il 1989 Holy Loch fu teatro di alcune fra le più importanto manifestazioni organizzate dallla CND, The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

- Edward Teller (Budapest 1908 – Stanford 2003), fisico nucleare americano di origine ungherese, è riconosciuto come il padre della bomba all'idrogeno.

Alessandro - 2009/6/11 - 13:25




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