The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #18392   Message #182507
Posted By: Mary G
21-Feb-00 - 10:10 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Songs about refugees
Subject: RE: Refugees
Here's a song about refugee kids I worked with. Names are real.

Maybe from Galway and maybe Saigon
The ships to American sail right along
And the first words they hear on America's shore:
"Go away! Go away! We can't take any more.

CHORUS: "For it's getting too crowded here under the flag,
And you're noisy and dirty and carry the plague,
So we will tell you what our folks heard before:
'Go away! Go away! We can't take any more.'"

Someday I'll ask every young refugee
"Where did you come from and what did you see?
What sorrow? what famine? what slaughter? what war?
How much did you take till you couldn't take more?"

So Carlos and Dang and Phat and Rashid
And Tuck and Mohammed grow up with good speed
And forget when we met you, we ranted and swore:
"Go away! Go away! We can't take any more."

And when you are citizens duly sworn in,
You'll go down to where others before you have been
And greet the next ship to America's shore:
"Go away! Go away! We can't take any more."