ALDERMASTON SONGBOOK - Part I
(Song selection from the early 1960s peace movement)
Link to CND website: www.cnduk.org
The H-Bomb’s Thunder
(By John Brunner to tune of Miners’ Lifeguard - see Socialist Songbook - and is also the tune of Gospel number Life Is Like A Mountain Railroad. The H-Bomb’s Thunder became the Anthem of CND, sung on all demonstrations.)
Don’t you hear the H-Bomb’s thunder
Echo like the crack of doom?
Whilst they rend the skies asunder,
Fallout makes the Earth a tomb.
Do you want your homes to tumble,
Rise in smoke towards the sky?
Will you let your cities crumble,
Will you see your children die?
Chorus:
Men and women, stand together
Do not heed the men of war,
Make your minds up now or never,
Ban the bomb for evermore.
Tell the leaders of the nations,
Make the whole wide world take heed,
Poison from the radiation
Strikes at every race and creed.
Must you put mankind in danger,
Murder folk in distant lands?
Would you bring death to a stranger,
Have their blood upon your hands?
(Chorus)
Shall we lay the world in ruin?
Only you can make the choice.
Stop and think of what your doing,
Join the march and raise your voice!
Time is short – we must be speedy,
We can see the hungry filled,
House the homeless, help the needy.
Shall we blast, or shall we build?
(Chorus)
Ban The Bloody H-Bomb
(Tune: John Brown’s Body)
(These words are now dated, reproduced here as an historical document, but the eliteration and mild swearing meant it could be sung with great feeling when you were tired, bitter and cold on the third or fourth day of the Aldermaston March.)
To Hell with all the humbug
And to Hell with all the lies!
To Hell with all the strontium
Continuing to rise!
To Hell with all the Charlies
With a gift for compromise
If they won’t ban the H-Bomb now!
(Chorus:)
Ban, ban, ban the bloody H-Bomb!
Ban, ban, ban the bloody H-Bomb!
Ban, ban, ban the bloody H-Bomb!
If you want to stay alive next year.
Macmillan and the Tories
They are out to wait and see,
They think the great deterrent
Will secure the victory.
I don’t know if they scare the Reds,
By God! They frighten me,
If they won’t ban the H-Bomb now!
(Chorus)
Gaitskell’s Labour Party
Are preparing for a sell,
They want to get the votes
And keep the atom bomb as well.
But strontium will send us all
To shovel coal in Hell,
So we’re gonna ban the H-Bomb now!
(Chorus)
Now half of them are barmy,
And half of them are blind,
They’ve all been talking far too long,
It’s time they all resigned!
And the way to shift a donkey
Is to wallop its behind,
So we’re going to ban the H-Bomb now!
(Chorus)
We’re going to stop the loonies
And preserve the human race.
We’re going to save our country
‘Cos we love the dear old place.
We may have to stuff a rocket
Up the rocket-builders’ base,
But we’re going to ban the H-Bomb now!
(Chorus)
Official Secret
(Tune: I Love a Lassie)
(On the 1963 Aldermaston March, Spies For Peace announced the existence of a government bunker at Warren Row, on the route of the march. The march made an unofficial diversion to this top secret Regional Seat of Government (RSG) for use in the event of a nuclear war. Warren Row was just one of many RSGs scattered thruout the countryside. A wave of songs were written about the RSGs)
I’ve got a secret, a nice Official Secret,
And I’ll publish it for all the world to see.
They’ve got a shelter, a nice official shelter,
They call it an RSG.
They have got a shelter,
A nice official shelter,
They call it an RSG.
Now they’ll find room for Macmillan
And all the other villains
And the boys from the Ministry.
But what about the people,
All the unofficial people,
Where will we be, you and me?
We’ll be out in the fallout,
The nice official fallout,
Dying for democracy!
Ballad of Warren Row
(Tune: traditional Scottish folk-tune The Sour Milk Cairt)
(The references to Supermac and Mr Brooke refer to Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Home Secretary Henry Brooke.)
Oh, when I was Easter marching
A couple of months ago,
I came upon a little place
By the name of Warren Row.
I saw a copper lurking,
So I told him why I’d come:
‘I want to find a place to hide
The day they drop the bomb’.
‘This hole is for your betters, chum;
The ones who get the boff,
And the Army’s booked the standing room,
So you’d better bugger off!
We’ve got a pew for Supermac,
And one for Mr Brooke,
And a golden-plated RSG
For Lizzie and the Duke.’
So all you nuclear marchers
Just take a look around,
And see where the Establishment
Intends to go to ground.
They’ll be down the rabbit-holes,
And we’ll be down the drain.
Let’s show the world their RSGs
And make them think again!
God Save Our RSG
(Tune: God Save The Queen)
God save our RSG,
No room for you or me,
Where will we be?
Out in the Wilderness,
Our Queen could not care less,
Our country’s in a bloody mess!
God Save our RSG!
The Racing Pigeon
(Same traditional folk-tune as Ballad of Warren Row)
(This song was written following the direct action Committee of 100’s huge civil disobedience sit-down in Trafalgar Square in September 1961 when thousands were arrested. CND didn’t endorse civil disobedience at the time, but its Chair, Canon John Collins, went along to observe and give moral support. He was arrested, along with other famous people of the time who were sitting down in the Square.)
Have you ever been to London?
Well I’ll tell you of me tale,
How I landed in Trafalgar Square
And ended up in jail.
They thought I was a squatter
That was there to ban the bomb,
But I’m only a racing pigeon
And my name is Molly Vaughn.
There were plenty of people in the Square,
Canon Collins was there as well,
Trying to stop the nonsense
That will blast us all to Hell.
John Osborne, Sheila Delaney,
And an officer looking trim.
He arrested Canon Collins,
So I’m glad I spotted him!
Oh we cuddled up to Nelson
On his great masonic pile
To view the whole commotion,
We were doing it in style!
And then a rousing cheer went up
And so I fluttered down,
I had me wings forced up me back
By an officer of the Crown!
At the court on Monday morning
I faced a magistrate
Who said to me: ‘My feathered friend
You’re in a dreadful state.
Your charged with messing on the Force,
And truly that’s no lie,
And for causing active fallout
To come dropping from the sky!’
Well, although I’m only a pigeon,
I wish I was all white,
With an olive branch stuck in me gob
And putting wrongs to right.
I’d tell the human beings
That instead of dropping bombs,
They should be standing in Trafalgar Square
And only dropping crumbs.
Go Limp
(Tune: British version of Sweet Betsy)
(This song about the CND marches and Committee of 100 sit-down civil disobedience demonstrations is not very PC, but it is quite harmless and humorous so I am including it here. Parents were often worried, with good reason, what their offspring were doing and who they were sleeping with on the school hall floors used to accommodate the Aldermaston marchers.)
Now daughter, dear daughter
Take warning from me,
And don’t you go a-marching
With the young CND,
For they’ll rock you and roll you
And shove you into bed,
And if they pinch your cherry
You’ll wish you were dead!
Chorus:
With a toorali, toorali, toorali-ay.
O mother, dear mother, oh be not afraid,
For I’ll go on that march
And I’ll come back a maid,
With a brick in my handbag
And a scowl on my face,
And barbed wire in my underwear
To keep off disgrace.
(Chorus)
Now as they were marching
A young man came by
With a beard on his chin
And a glint in his eye
And before she had time
To remember her brick
They were holding a sit-down
On a neighboring rick.
(Chorus)
Now once at a briefing
She’d heard a man say
Go perfectly limp
And be carried away,
So when this chap suggested
It was time she was kissed
She remembered her briefing
And did not resist.
(Chorus)
Oh meeting is pleasure,
And parting is pain,
I don’t need to sing
All that folk stuff again.
O mother, o mother
I’m stiff and I’m sore
From sleeping three nights
On a hard classroom floor.
(Chorus)
Now mother, don’t flap
There’s no need for distress.
That marcher has left me
His name and address,
And if we can win,
Though a baby there be,
He won’t have to march
Like his dada and me.
(Chorus)
Bug-Eyed Martian
(Tune: Waltzing Matilda)
(Minuteman, Vostok and Polaris were all rockets used to launch nuclear warheads.)
Once a bug-eyed Martian
Riding in his rocket-ship
Made a little pleasure trip
To Planet 3,
Passing the Van Allen Belt,
When he least expected it
He bumped into a satellite
At 19G
Chorus:
Bumped into a satellite,
Bumped into a satellite,
He bumped into a satellite
At 19G.
Passing the Van Allen Belt,
When he least expected it
He bumped into a satellite
At 19G.
What in Space are Earthmen
Doing with a satellite?
Earthmen haven’t any right
To bother me.
Putting on his pressure suit,
Patching up his rocket tubes
I’d better go and take a look
Said he.
(Chorus)
So the bug-eyed Martian
Went down thru the stratosphere
Turning on his scanning gear
And E.S.P.,
He went to look at Minutemen,
Vostoks and Polarises
At Baikal, Canaveral and
Out at sea.
(Chorus)
Soon the bug-eyed Martian
Shot back thru the strastophere
Knowing that he needn’t fear
Because, you see
All those great big rocket-ships
Are loaded up with atom bombs,
They’ll never make it alive
Said he.
They’ll never make it,
They’ll never make it,
They’ll never make it
Alive, said he.
All those great big rocket-ships
Are loaded up with atom bombs
They’ll never make it alive
Said he.
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
(Alternative words to the traditional Christmas carol.)
God rest ye merry gentlemen,
Sleep easy in your beds,
The independent British bomb
Is flying overhead,
To go and kill the Russians
When the rest of us are dead
Chorus:
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy.
I’ve got a little tin hat
And I wear it every day,
It keeps me safe by darkest night
From every gamma ray,
And saves me from the H-bombs’ power
When they have gone astray
(Chorus)
If Jesus Christ came back to Earth
To save the rich and poor
We wouldn’t crucify him
Like the Romans did before,
But I’d shoot him if I caught him
At my fallout shelter door
(Chorus)
Man With The Knob
(Tune: The Man That Waters The Workers’ Beer)
I’m the man, the well fed man
In charge of the dreadful knob.
The most pleasant thing about it is
It’s almost a permanent job.
When the atom war is over
And the Earth is split in three,
The consolation I’ve got,
Or maybe it’s not,
There’ll be nobody left but me.
I sit at me desk in Washington
In front of a large machine.
More vicious than Adolf Hitler,
More deadly than strychnine.
In the evening after a tiring day
Just to give myself a laugh,
I hit the button a playful belt
And listen for the blast.
If the Russians start their nonsense
And kick up a nasty smell,
With a wink and a nod from the President
I'll blast them in to Hell,
And as for that fellow, Castro,
Him with the sugar cane,
He needn't hide behind his whiskers
For I'll get him just the same.
If my wife denies my conjugal rights
Or the morning milk is sour,
From 8 till 9 in the morning
You’re in for a nervous hour.
The button being so terribly close,
It’s really a dreadful joke;
A bump with me arse as I go past
And you all go up in smoke.
I’m thinking of joining the army,
The army to ban the bomb,
They’ll take up a collection
And I’ll donate my thumb;
For without it I am powerless,
And that’s the way to be.
You don’t have to kill the whole bloody lot
To set the people free!
Four Minute Warning
(Tune: traditional)
Four minutes more,
Give me four minutes more,
Only four minutes more in your arms.
Four minutes more,
Give me four minutes more,
Then the fallout will ruin all your charms.
Better Things
(Tune: traditional)
Kind friends I want to warn you,
Because I love us all,
No doubt you read your papers,
But the half can never be told.
Politicians they try to fool you,
And get you to agree,
To blow this world to Glory
And end humanity.
Chorus:
But there are better things to do
Than blow this world in two;
You can live into your old age
And your kids’ll be normal too.
There’s better things for you,
That all on Earth must do,
Gotta set your feet on the road to Peace
And see your journey thru.
Now some folks think that danger
Can’t reach our peaceful shore,
They must see planes and soldiers
Before they call it war.
Kind friends I would remind you
That the atom’s very small,
It can blow us all to Glory
And you can’t see it at all!
(Chorus)
Now some folks they are holy,
In the Bible it is told
That Judgment comes tomorrow
So today pray for your soul,
But that is not sufficient,
Tomorrow is today,
And they’ll blow us all to Glory
While you just sit and pray.
(Chorus)
Ding Dong Dollar
Tune: She'll Be Coming 'Round The Mountain.
Scottish anti-Polaris song against the American base on the Holy Loch, near Dunoon. A variation of Ye Cannae Shove Your Granny Off A Bus (Ye cannae shove your granny off a bus, Oh ye cannae shove your granny off a bus, Oh ye cannae shove your granny, 'Cos she's your mammy's mammy, No ye cannae shove your granny off a bus.)
Och, the Yanks hae just drapp'd anchor in Dunoon
And they had a civic welcome frae the toon,
As they measured up the mile
Bonnie Mary o' Argyle
Wis wearin' spangled drawers below her goon.
Chorus:
Oh ye cannae spend a dollar when you're dead
No ye cannae spend a dollar when you're dead
Och ye cannae spend a dollar,
Everybody holler,
Ye cannae spend a dollar when you're dead.
And the publicans will all be doin' swell,
For it's just the thing that's sure to ring the bell,
Och the dollars they will jingle
There'll be no lassie single
Even though they're here to blow us all to Hell.
(Chorus)
But the Glesgae Moderator disnae mind
In fact he thinks the Yanks are awfy kind
For if it's Heaven that you're going
It's a quicker way than rowing
And there's sure to be naebody left behind.
(Chorus).
