Matilda

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?