Country kids brave as city pigeons
dodging soldiers' boots for breadcrumbs
ain't got no toys or televisions
just fire and melted crayons
Just like a clown from the Rodeo
out east to sing songs with the circus I've ridden
boots and a hat and accordion
just a cowboy in a land whose name is forbidden
Down from the mountain by the light of a lamp
all the girls and men are gone
cold at night at a frontier camp
the Yezidis wake at dawn
Just like a clown from the Rodeo
out east to sing songs with the circus I've ridden
boots and a hat and accordion
just a cowboy in a land whose name is forbidden
Translation:
(in the sun's ear the child whispers, to send his greeting to the martyr
crayon and a white paper tells the story of this orphan child
war and troops rolled through the place
in their hand a power to control time
a child's braveness shocks the deity
he begs with the sun of the land)
Orphan children with guns at their hips
don't remember ma and pa
quiet discipline with a quivering lip
fight the state and its crooked law
Just like a clown from the Rodeo
out east to sing songs with the circus I've ridden
boots and a hat and accordion
just a cowboy in a land whose name is forbidden
dodging soldiers' boots for breadcrumbs
ain't got no toys or televisions
just fire and melted crayons
Just like a clown from the Rodeo
out east to sing songs with the circus I've ridden
boots and a hat and accordion
just a cowboy in a land whose name is forbidden
Down from the mountain by the light of a lamp
all the girls and men are gone
cold at night at a frontier camp
the Yezidis wake at dawn
Just like a clown from the Rodeo
out east to sing songs with the circus I've ridden
boots and a hat and accordion
just a cowboy in a land whose name is forbidden
Translation:
(in the sun's ear the child whispers, to send his greeting to the martyr
crayon and a white paper tells the story of this orphan child
war and troops rolled through the place
in their hand a power to control time
a child's braveness shocks the deity
he begs with the sun of the land)
Orphan children with guns at their hips
don't remember ma and pa
quiet discipline with a quivering lip
fight the state and its crooked law
Just like a clown from the Rodeo
out east to sing songs with the circus I've ridden
boots and a hat and accordion
just a cowboy in a land whose name is forbidden
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In January of 2016, we travelled to the Kurdish region of Turkey along with Clowns Without Borders to play for children. We played for a group of Yezidi refugees in their camp, who had fled ISIS in Iraq; for a group of Kurdish children in Diyarbakir; and for children living in the village of Dargeçit which had been under an imposed curfew and siege from the Turkish Army. This song is about the children we met on that trip.
A year later, many of the folks in towns under siege lost their homes. Over 100,000 Kurdish folks in southeastern Turkey lost their homes in 2016. The Yazidi camp was closed down, and many who lived there are now in worse conditions in major cities across Turkey and Iraq.