Making My Child Red

My birthday present finally arrived -- Billy Bragg's Vol I -- and I've been listening to the CDs non-stop in an attempt to lift my depression*.

The kid's favorite song so far?

The Red Flag

The people's flag is deepest red
It shrouded oft our martyred dead
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold
Their hearts' blood dyed to every fold

Then raise the scarlet standard high
Beneath its folds we'll live and die
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer
We'll keep the red flag flying here

http://www.billybragg.co.uk/releases/albums/internationale/inter6.html

That's my girl.

Her second favorite is The Marching Song of the Covert Battalions, which includes these lines:

Here we are, seeking out the Reds
Trying to keep the communists in order
Just remember when you're sleeping in your beds
They're only two days drive from the Texas border
How can a country large as ours
Be scared of such a threat
Well if they won't work for us
They're against us you can bet
They may be sovereign countries
But you folks at home forget
That they all want what we've got
But they don't know it yet

We're making the world safe for capitalism

Here we come with our candy and our guns
And our corporate muscle marches in behind us
For freedom's just another world for nothing left to sell
And if you want narcotics we can get you those as well
We help the multi-nationals
When they cry out protect us
The locals scream and shout a bit
But we don't let that affect us
We're here to lend a helping hand
In case they don't elect us
How dare they buy our products
Yet still they don't respect us

We're making the world safe for capitalism

http://www.billybragg.co.uk/releases/albums/internationale/inter3.html


She says to me, "Can I take this CD with me when I go visit Grandma this summer?"

"...uh," I say. "Sure."



*Self-medicating with Billy Bragg. Well, it's a lot worse things I could be self-medicating with, I reckon.