Fred Small - At the Elbe
текст песни

Well mister I just overheard you talking through your drink
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How the Russians lie like rugs how they've pushed us to the brink
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Now sit right here beside me I've an old man's tale to tell
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How Yanks and Reds were friends once at the Elbe.
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My name is Joe Polowski I hitched up in '41
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Left my sweetheart in Chicago and I learned to fire a gun
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The fog in the Ardennes so thick you could not see your nose
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Nor the ghosts in the Belgian wood advancing through the snow.
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We left our dead behind us and we scaled the Dragon's Teeth
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With screaming mimis overhead not one of us could sleep
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Some fell to the enemy some fell to the creeping cold
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And I killed a German sniper who was not fourteen years old.
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When a soldier takes a hit my friend it ain't like Hollywood
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Bone and guts go flying and everywhere there's blood
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For a moment he is mystified there must be some mistake
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As it all drains out in a crimson lake.
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Then April turned the weather and likewise the tide of war
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As haggard hungry Germans surrendered by the score
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And thank god for the Russians who took the battle's brunt
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And broke the back of the Wermacht along the eastern front. Then
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We saw a burst of lilacs and the river swift and wide
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And rest and welcome waiting for us on the other side
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And Yanks and Reds laughed out loud to be alive at the Elbe.
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We caught the glint of water and upon the distant shore
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Men and trucks and horses not German and not ours
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No bridge to cross but at the dock a boat securely tied
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We blew the chain and rowed like demons for the other side.
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But when we stepped up on the land oh Jesus what a sight
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Blackened bodies of civilians like driftwood piled high
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Cut down by stray artillery -- what the hell is it all for
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We knelt and cursed the cruelty and madness men call war.
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Three Russians approached us, we shook hands and then embraced
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Stalingrad had traced it's lines of sadness on their face
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Upon that field of corpses these weary happy men
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Swore an oath that it must never happen again.
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And then we wept and cheered and spoke in languages unknown
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They poured us Russian vodka by god we drank it down
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We sang "The Volga Boatman" they sang "Tavern in the Town"
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I never kissed so many men as on that afternoon when
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We saw a burst of lilacs and the river swift and wide
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And rest and welcome waiting for us on the other side
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And Yanks and Reds laughed out loud to be alive at the Elbe.
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But no sooner were we stateside than the cold war headlines read
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Commies in the unions commies under every bed
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Hurrah the Nazi devil's down long live the devil Red
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And not one word about the oath we swore amongst the dead.
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There are kids today who'll tell you we fought Russia in the war
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There are armchair heroes set to settle some old score
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There are profiteers and pushers primed to send young men once more
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To blow themselves to glory on some godforsaken shore.
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So drape my coffin with the flag of the good old USA
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Let Yanks in army khaki and Reds in Russian gray
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Lower me so gently into the German clay
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And speak again the oath we swore that day when
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We saw a burst of lilacs and the river swift and wide
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And rest and welco