Saturday, October 25, 2014

All The Men Are Gone

To listen to All The Men Are Gone, click here




All the men are gone, all the men are gone
What will you do mama when all the men are gone?

Some have taken wives, some their own lives
Some have taken planes, and some of them new names
What will you do mama when all the men are gone?

Some of them in tears, some of them in fear
Some for other gods, some well just because

Some of them for cash, some as smoke and ash
Some of them for right, some of them for wrong

Some of them so brave, some of them as slaves
Some of them with guns, some of them with bombs

Some of them in pain, some in driving rain
Some before the Flood, some in wrath of God

Some of them diseased, some in search of peace
Some of them in hate, some of them in love

Some for your defense, some in arrogance
Some on the Hermon, some in Lebanon








The morning of June 6th 1982, fifteenth anniversary of the outbreak of the 6 Day War, morning of the invasion of southern Lebanon - the so-called War of Peace for Galilee. The kibbutz was deserted except for the women and children, those too old or sick to fight, and those foreigners who, like myself, were allowed only a passive participation in the war. I sat in my room trying to work out why all the men had gone, and did not like any of the answers I came up with.



A country at war could be almost anywhere in the world, and usually is. Those wishing to universalise this song should simply delete the final couplet; those wishing to personalise it might be glad of some help in finding suitable rhymes; Somme-Rouen, Mekong-Saigon, Kreznakovsk-Brest Litovsk etc







If you would like to include "All The Men Are Gone" in your repertoire, either for paid public performance or to record for commercial purposes, or if you would like to re-use the recordings attached to this blog-page for commercial purposes, contact argaman@theargamanpress.com. 
Use of this song, and/or these recordings, for non-commercial purposes, is not simply permitted but invited.



Words and music by David Prashker
Copyright © 2014 David Prashker


All rights reserved
The Argaman Press

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