Help Save the Youth of America.

[MattHatter]

Help save the youth of America
Help save them from themselves
Help save the sun-tanned surfer boys
And the Californian girls

When the lights go out in the rest of the World
What do our cousins say
They're playing in the sun and having fun, fun, fun
Till Daddy takes the gun away

From the Big Church to the Big River
And out to the Shining Sea
This is the Land of Opportunity
And there's a Monkey Trial on TV

A nation with their freezers full
Are dancing in their seats
While outside another nation
Is sleeping in the streets

Don't tell me the old, old story
Tell me the truth this time
Is the Man in the Mask or the Indian
An enemy or a friend of mine

Help save the youth of America
Help save the youth of the world
Help save the boys in uniform
Their mothers and their faithful girls

Listen to the voice of the soldier
Down in the killing zone
Talking about the cost of living
And the price of bringing him home

They're already shipping the body bags
Down by the Rio Grande
But you can fight for democracy at home
And not in some foreign land

And the fate of the great United States
Is entwined in the fate of us all
And the incident at Tschernobyl proves
The world we live in is very small

And the cities of Europe have burned before
And they may yet burn again
And if they do I hope you understand
That Washington will burn with them
Omaha will burn with them
Los Alamos will burn with them.

- Billy Bragg





Discuss.


Matt

[Wake up CALL]

[ QUOTE ]
Discuss.

[/ QUOTE ] Discuss what?

[Eihli]

The poem.

[Wake up CALL]

[ QUOTE ]
The poem.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank-you.

[ComedyLimp]

It's a song rather than a poem -- specfically a song from Billy's wonderful third album "Talking With the Taxman About Poetry". Musically its something of an up tempo, bluesy, sing-a-long footstomper although personally I think its one of the weaker songs on the album. Lyrically on that album nothing -- and certainly not "Help Save the Youth of America" -- can compete with the couplet "A wife has three great attributes / Intelligence, a swiss army knife and charm".

Indeed although Billy is often defined as a political artist personally I find he is far more eloquent on the subject of love. Take for example the wonderful paeon to unrequited schoolboy love, The Saturday Boy:

I'll never forget the first day I met her
That September morning was clear and fresh
The way she spoke and laughed at my jokes
And the way she rubbed herself
Against the edge of my desk
She became a magic mystery to me
And we'd sit together in double
History twice a week
And some days we'd walk the same way home
And it's surprising how quick
A little rain can clear the streets
We dreamed of her and compared our dreams
But that was all that I ever tasted
She lied to me with her body you see
I lied to myself 'bout the chances I'd wasted

The times we were close
Were far and few between
In the darkness at the dances in the school canteen
Did she close her eyes like I did
As we held each other tight
And la la la la la la la la means I love you

She danced with me and I still hold that memory
Soft and sweet
And I stare up at her window
As I walk down her street
But I never made the first team,
I just made the first team laugh
And she never came to the phone
She was always in the bath
I had to look in the dictionary
To find out the meaning of unrequited
While she was giving herself for free
At a party to which I was never invited

I never understood my failings then
And I hide my humble hopes now
Thinking back she made us want her
A girl not old enough to shave her legs

If the questioner is specifically interested in Billy's political views on America then for something slightly more contempoary than "Help Save the Youth" (which is 20 years old and always feels very 80s/Reagan/Cold War to me) then you might want to try "The Price of Oil":

Saddam killed his own people,
Just like General Pinochet.
And once upon a time both these evil men,
Were supported by the USA.
And whisper it eveen bin Laden,
Once drank from America's cup.
Just like that election down in Florida,
This [censored] doesn't all add up

You can listen to this song here (http://www.billybragg.com/multimedia/price_of_oil.mp3)

Finally, if you want to hear songs about America the place and the people rather than the rather perverse actions of her Government, I'd steer you more towards Billy's interpretations of Woodie Guthrie's lyrics he did with Jeff Tweedy and Wilco on the "Mermaid Avenue" albums.

Matthew

[superleeds]

One of the best songs about a failed relationship ever written IMHO