O Johnnie, O Johnnie, just listen to what I say,
It's the God's truth, I tell you, I'm not lying:
You can't swim the crawl or kick the soccer ball
when from radiation sickness you are dying.
You can't sprint down the track with a bullet in your back,
a punch won't stop a bomb when it's falling;
when you find yourself in trouble under eighty tons of rubble,
don't expect to hear the referee a-calling.
You're not good at the trapeze when you're cut off at the knees
or burned by Napalm to a cinder;
And you don't feel at your best with a bayonet in your chest
or when a flame-thrower makes you burn like tinder.
You can wear your judo belt but it won't be any help
when the poison gas towards you come a-drifting;
and a perfect swallow dive won't help you stay alive
when a mushrom cloud towards the sky is lifting.
So Johnnie lad, get wise, wipe the sweat out of your eyes,
it's time to cut the enemy down to size, man.
With their statesmen and their banks, their bombers, guns and tanks,
you've got to kick 'em out to take the prize, lad.
It's the God's truth, I tell you, I'm not lying:
You can't swim the crawl or kick the soccer ball
when from radiation sickness you are dying.
You can't sprint down the track with a bullet in your back,
a punch won't stop a bomb when it's falling;
when you find yourself in trouble under eighty tons of rubble,
don't expect to hear the referee a-calling.
You're not good at the trapeze when you're cut off at the knees
or burned by Napalm to a cinder;
And you don't feel at your best with a bayonet in your chest
or when a flame-thrower makes you burn like tinder.
You can wear your judo belt but it won't be any help
when the poison gas towards you come a-drifting;
and a perfect swallow dive won't help you stay alive
when a mushrom cloud towards the sky is lifting.
So Johnnie lad, get wise, wipe the sweat out of your eyes,
it's time to cut the enemy down to size, man.
With their statesmen and their banks, their bombers, guns and tanks,
you've got to kick 'em out to take the prize, lad.
Contributed by The Lone Ranger - 2010/4/30 - 14:08
×
![]()
Note for non-Italian users: Sorry, though the interface of this website is translated into English, most commentaries and biographies are in Italian and/or in other languages like French, German, Spanish, Russian etc.
Tune: “O Charlie, O Charlie”, traditional.
Il testo è incluso nel volume “The Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook: sixty years of songmaking” (1998), ma non so se la canzone sia mai stata incisa su disco.