Union Songs

All Souls' Day

A song by Teresa Healy©2004 Teresa Healy

- [play]

I
If I don't speak, If I don't look,
maybe he'll go away
If I don't read, If I forget,
maybe he'll go away.

But I know they're rocking babies
They're rocking babies to sleep
In Fallujah

They're rocking babies,
They're rocking babies who sleep
In their graves

II
One last hope that change would come
Through ballot boxes on the run
Naiveté an abdication
Insurgents charge for what is owed and
We will reap what has been sowed
Until the seventh generation

They're rocking babies to sleep
Babies to sleep, babies to sleep
In Fallujah

While bombs fell on their ancient homes
After fairy tales and free speech zones
The votes were cast and some were even counted

The mission flew, and the fools they lie
Torturers left hope to die
Thus was freedom and democracy exported

They're rocking babies to sleep
Old men who sleep and young girls who sleep
In their graves

How many children of the occupied
Grow up with scars that they can't hide?
Each fateful second burned upon their memory
An invasion for the privateers
The whole world knows the whole world hears
The screams of an illegal occupation

They're rocking babies to sleep
Young men who sleep, women who sleep
In their graves

III
The father's wail
The mother's cry
The child's last breath
Will split the night
I close my eyes it's there again
It's there in my imagining

But I am not the one
Who's rocking babies to sleep

The email news stops me cold
Fires my sight
Brings my blood to boil
I close my eyes it's there again
The terrorist, the war president

I am not the one
Who's rocking babies to sleep
In Fallujah

Is insurgency another word for living?

No war over empire
No war over empire ...

Notes

Many thanks to Teresa Healy for permission to add this song to the Union Songs collection.

Teresa is a singer-songwriter and labour researcher working for the Canadian Union of Public Employees. She lives in Ottawa, Canada. She writes:
"Each year, many people mark November 2nd as "All Souls' Day" - a day to remember the dead. On November 2nd, 2004, George W. Bush was returned to the White House for his second term as U.S. president. Immediately, he launched a brutal attach on the Iraqi city of Fallujah. I wrote this song because we cannot and will not forget what he has done."

Visit Teresa http://www.teresahealy.ca

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union songs..........a selection by mark gregory