Heute gibt es viel Englisch, und ich hoffe, das ist für diejenigen von Euch okay, die die Sprache vielleicht nicht so gut beherrschen.
Ich möchte Euch ein Lied weiterleiten. Es ist eines der berühmten Anti-Kriegs-Lieder und heisst: "And the band played Waltzing Matilda". Geschrieben wurde es von Eric Bogle. Es geht um die Schlacht von Gallipoli in der Türkei, eines der furchtbarsten Ereignisse während des ersten Weltkrieges, als australische Soldaten dort versuchten, Istanbul zu erobern.
Das Lied nimmt Bezug auf eines der populärsten australischen Volkslieder: "Waltzing Matilda". In diesem Lied geht es um die Freiheit eines Menschen.
Die Version, die ich Euch hier weiterleite, ist von Liam Clancy, einem irischen Sänger (1935 – 2009). Bevor er zu singen anfängt, zitiert er ein Gedicht von William Butler Yeats, das ebenfalls die Absurdität des Krieges anprangert. Ich schreibe Euch hier sowohl das Gedicht als auch den Text des Liedes auf. Ich liebe seinen Gesang sehr...
Das Lied hat keinen direkten Bezug zur jetzigen Situation - und vielleicht doch.
Ihr könnt das Lied hier auf YouTube anhören. Der Link sollte direkt zum Lied führen; falls nicht, es beginnt bei Minute [40:29].
Gedicht von William Butler Yeats:
Some nineteen German planes, they say,
You had brought down before you died.
We called it a good death. Today
Can ghost or man be satisfied?
Although your last exciting year
Outweighed all other years, you said,
Though battle joy may be so dear
A memory, even to the dead,
It chases other thought away,
Yet rise from your Italian tomb,
Flit to Kiltartan Cross and stay
Till certain second thoughts have come
Upon the cause you served, that we
Imagined such a fine affair:
Half-drunk or whole-mad soldiery
Are murdering your tenants there.
Men that revere your father yet
Are shot at on the open plain.
Where may new-married women sit
And suckle children now? Armed men
May murder them in passing by
Nor law nor parliament take heed.
Then close your ears with dust and lie
Among the other cheated dead.
Eric Bogle: And the Band played Waltzing Matilda:
Now when I was a young man, I carried my pack
And I lived the free life of the rover.
From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback
Well, I waltzed my Matilda all over.
Then in 1915, my country said: "Son
It's time you stopped rambling, there's work to be done".
So they gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war.
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As the ship pulled away from the quay
And amidst all the cheers, the flag-waving and tears
We sailed off for Gallipoli.
And how well I remember that terrible day
When our blood stained the sand and the water.
And of how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter.
Johnny Turk, he was waiting, he'd primed himself well
He showered us with bullets and he rained us with shell
And in five minutes flat, he'd blown us all to hell
Nearly blew us back home to Australia.
But the band played Waltzing Matilda
When we stopped to bury our slain.
We buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs
Then it started all over again.
And those that were living just tried to survive
In that mad world of blood, death and fire.
And for ten weary weeks, I kept myself alive
Though around me the corpses piled higher.
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head
And when I woke up in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, well I wished I was dead
Never knew there was worse things than dyin'.
For I'll go no more waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and free
To hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me.
So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, the maimed
And they shipped us back home to Australia.
The legless, the armless, the blind, the insane
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla
And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where me legs used to be
And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me
To grieve, to mourn, and to pity.
But the band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway.
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared
Then they turned all their faces away.
And so now every April, I sit on me porch
And I watch the parades pass before me
And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march,
Reviving old dreams of past glories.
And the old men march slowly, old bones stiff and sore
They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask: "what are they marching for?".
And I ask myself the same question.
But the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men still answer the call
But as year follows year, more old men disappear
Someday no one will march there at all
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard
As they march by that billabong
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?