The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #56795   Message #891024
Posted By: Coyote Breath
15-Feb-03 - 01:12 PM
Thread Name: Greatest Anti-War Song Ever?
Subject: Lyr Add: THE RED FEAST (Ralph Chapin)
"The Red Feast" by Ralph Chapin. It is, correctly, a poem but has been set to music. It was written in 1912 or 13 and was a protest against the madness in Europe which became WWI. The poem is printed in the original "Little Red Song Book", published by the IWW.

I can't remember it all but enough to give you an idea of it's unrelenting anger at war and war's "masters". I
believe it was 10 or 12 verses in all.

The Red Feast
Raplh Chapin

Go fight you fools
Tear up the earth with strife
And spill each other's guts
upon the field.
Serve unto death
The men you served in life,
So that THEIR wide dominions
May not yield.

Stand by the flag
The lie that still allures
Lay down your lives for land
You do not own
And give unto
A war that is not yours
Your gory tithe
Of mangled flesh and bone

But whether in the fray
To fall or kill
You do not dare to
Question why or where
You see those tiny crosses on that hill?
It took all those to save one millionare!

It was for him the sea of blood was shed
That fields were razed
And cities lit the sky
That he might come
And chortle o'er the dead
That condor thing
For whom the millions die

The last verse, as I remember it was:

Then you will know that Nation's but a name
And bounderies are things that don't exist
And mankind's bondage, worldwide, is the same
and WAR the enemy he must resist.

CB