Lyr Add: Red Army Blues (Mike Scott)

Subject: RE: Red Army Blues
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 09:48 AM

For those interested, the Red Army Blues can be found on In a Pagan Place.

Subject: RE: Red Army Blues
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 11:12 AM

I figure that I should mention that the melody Mike Waterson used is Polyushko Pole, known in English as the Cossack Patrol.

Roads to Moscow has to be one of Al Stewart's greatest songs.

Subject: Lyr Add: ROADS TO MOSCOW (Al Stewart)
From: mousethief
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 03:06 PM

Lovely song. Very powerful. What a horrid period of history.

In the same vein (as sledge noted):

ROADS TO MOSCOW
by Al Stewart

They crossed over the border the hour before dawn
Moving in lines through the day
Most of our planes were destroyed on the ground where they lay
Waiting for orders we held in the wood
Word from the front never came
By evening the sound of the gunfire was miles away
Ah, softly we move through the shadows, slip away through the trees
Crossing their lines in the mists in the fields on our hands and our knees
And all that I ever was able to see
The fire in the air glowing red, silhouetting the smoke on the breeze

All summer they drove us back through the Ukraine
Smolyensk and Viyasma soon fell
By autumn we stood with our backs to the town of Orel
Closer and closer to Moscow they come
Riding the wind like a bell
General Guderian stands at the crest of the hill
Winter brought with her the rains, oceans of mud filled the roads
Gluing the tracks of their tanks to the ground while the sky filled with snow
And all that I ever was able to see
The fire in the air glowing red, silhouetting the snow on the breeze

In the footsteps of Napoleon
The shadow figures stagger through the winter
Falling back before the gates of Moscow,
Standing in the wings like an avenger
And far away behind their lines
The partisans are stirring in the forest
Coming unexpectedly upon their outposts,
Growing like a promise
You'll never know, you'll never know
Which way to turn, which way to look, you'll never see us
As we're stealing through the blackness of the night,
You'll never know, you'll never hear us

And the evening sings in a voice of amber, the dawn is surely coming
The morning road leads to Stalingrad, and the sky is softly humming

Two broken Tigers on fire in the night
Flicker their souls to the wind
We wait in the lines for the final approach to begin
It's been almost four years that I've carried a gun
At home it'll almost be spring
The flames of the Tigers are lighting the road to Berlin
Ah, quickly we move through the ruins that bow to the ground
The old men and children they send out to face us, they can't slow us down
And all that I ever was able to see
The eyes of the city are opening now it's the end of the dream

I'm coming home, I'm coming home,
Now you can taste it in the wind, the war is over
And I listen to the clicking of the train wheels
As we roll across the border
And now they ask me of the time
That I was caught behind their lines and taken prisoner
"They only held me for a day, a lucky break", I say;
They turn and listen closer
I'll never know, I'll never know
Why I was taken from the line and all the others
To board a special train
And journey deep into the heart of holy Russia

And it's cold and damp in the transit camp, and the air is still and sullen
And the pale sun of October whispers the snow will soon be coming
And I wonder when I'll be home again and the morning answers "Never"
And the evening sighs and the steely Russian skies go on … forever

--------------------------

Alex
O..O
=o=

---

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_ZG6tRGMYk

Subject: RE: Red Army Blues
From: canoer
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 02:49 PM

Where'd you find it, LEJ? That's a really hidden piece of history!

Subject: RE: Red Army Blues
From: canoer
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 02:48 PM

Subject: RE: Red Army Blues
From: sledge
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 05:53 AM

A great song indeed, puts me in mind of Al Stewarts "Roads to Moscow", equaly powerful stuff.

Stu

Subject: RE: Red Army Blues
From: Wolfgang
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 04:05 AM

great song, thank you

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Red Army Blues
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Oct 00 - 12:33 PM

Whew.

Subject: Lyr Add: RED ARMY BLUES (Mike Scott)
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 23 Oct 00 - 12:45 AM

Red Army Blues

When I left my home and family, my mother said to me:
“Son, it's not how many Germans you kill that counts; it's how many people you set free.”
So I packed my bags, brushed my cap, walked out into the world,
Seventeen years old, never kissed a girl.

I took the train to Voronezh. That was as far as it would go.
Changed my sacks for a uniform, bit my lip against the snow.
I prayed for mother Russia in the summer of ‘43,
And as we drove the Germans back, I really believed God was listening to me.

We howled into Berlin, tore the smoking buildings down,
Raised the red flag high, burned the Reichstag brown.
I saw my first American. He looked a lot like me.
Had the same kind of farmer's face. Said he came from somewhere called Hazard, Tennessee.

When the war was over, my discharge papers came.
Me and twenty hundred others went to Stettiner for the train.
“Kiev,” said the commissar, “From there you’re own way home.”
But I never got to Kiev. We never came by home.

The train went north to the taiga. We were stripped and marched in file
Up the great Siberian road, miles and miles and miles,
Dressed in stripes and tatters in a gulag left to die,
All because comrade Stalin feared we'd become too westernized.

Used to love my country; used to be so young;
Used to believe that life was the best song ever sung.
I would have died for my country back in 1945,
But now only one thing remains the brute will to survive.

---- Mike Scott The Waterboys