D7 THE BALLAD OF THE BIG CIGARS                                
(1968)

We heard Fidel speak a number of times after that. He was never without a cigar. (See note to "The Compañeros")
words and music: Ewan MacColl
© 1968 Ewan MacColl, Ltd.

There's a little sun-drenched island in the Caribbean Sea,
It used to be like paradise, all fun and gaiety;
You could take a plane from Florida, just ninety miles away,
And live there like an emperor for fifty bucks a day.

Chorus:       Happy days at an end ...
               Uncle Sam, the poor old sod, ain't got a friend.

There were servants cheap and plentiful, the natives were in debt;
But for sportsmen on vacation there was faro and roulette;
And if you fancied other sports you flashed a dollar bill
And regiments of whores were there your pleasures to fulfill. (chorus)

The government took orders from the local C.I.A.
And always served the interests of the good old USA;
The natives they all knew their place and did what they were told,
Hotels were air-conditioned and the beer was always cold. (chorus)

One day in nineteen-fifty-six, the year was almost run,
Ten-thousand U.S. citizens lay browning in the sun,
When a certain hairy Cuban, regardless of the risk,
Lit a big cigar and burnt those U.S. arses to a crisp. (chorus)

Well, the gangsters and the bankers, all the con-men and the crimps,
The corporation lawyers, all the bully-boys and pimps,
Shouting, 'FREEDOM!' and 'DEMOCRACY!' (and other thrilling cries)
Flew back to God's own country like ten-thousand blue-arsed flies. (chorus)

One by one, Batista's outposts were attacked and overrun,
By a band of compañeros led by him they call The Man;
He lit a big Havana as they rested at the halt,
Then through Oriente Province went just like a dose of salts. (chorus)

Fidel puffed a king-sized Uppmann and Las Villas province fell;
He lit a Monte Cristo and Batista ran like hell;
Then he lit a Simon Bolivar and overran the south
And Big Daddy in the White House started foaming at the mouth. (chorus)

So the pimps and exiled gangsters who had run the gambling rigs,
Early on a summer's morning landed at the Bay of Pigs;
Fidel puffed a big Partagas, and then he shouted, 'Scram!'
And the Bay of Pigs invasion force was smoked just like a ham. (chorus)

Now, that little sun-drenched island's full of folks who smoke cigars,
You can smell the fine aroma in Peru and Panama;
And when miners in Bolivia rise up to claim their rights,
You can bet your life that Fidel's big Havana's burning bright. (chorus)

When he lights a Larrañaga, Guatemalan workers rise;
When he puffs a Castenado, Venezuelans organise;
And Colombian guerrillas in their jungle bivouacs
Use the glow of his Corona as the signal to attack. (chorus)

But the wind that blows from Cuba's cold in Washington D.C.,
Where Big Daddy's in the White House, sick with insecurity;
And every night he dreams he's roasting on a funeral pyre,
While Fidel's Ramon Allones sets the U.S.A. on fire. (chorus)