Lähtekää jo, amerikkalaiset

Annotation

The song "Lähtekää jo, amerikkalaiset" ("Leave Already, Americans") is on the album Vietnamin linnut ("Vietnamese Birds", Love Records # LRLP 63), on which every song is Vietnam-related.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English: We know Western military science well / And we understand whom such science serves / When the American takes a child on his bayonet / And douses the villages with phosphorus / We know the gas that makes you laugh / And the second one, which gives you the runs / The third one makes you bald, and the fourth one takes your memory / The fifth one leads, little by little, to metamorphosis / The sixth one clogs your arteries and swells your brain / And the seventh one makes your eyes bulge out of their sockets / The eighth one is being spread in faraway villages / It leads to ever more miscarriages / They are a gift to us / From the United States of North America's / Monopoly capital / From warmongering leaders / From irresponsible researchers / From senators, judges, murderers of negroes / From the little widow / Who invested her last savings in the war industry / And donated her interest income / To renewing the machines at the old cats' eye-testing institute __________ Finnish: Me länsimaisen sotatieteen hyvin tunnemme / Ja ymmärrämme ketä moinen tiede palvelee / Kun amerikkalainen ottaa lapsen pistimeen / Ja fosforilla kylät valelee / Me tunnemme sen kaasun joka panee nauramaan / Ja toisen joka aiheuttaa juoksutautia / Kolmas tekee kaljuksi ja neljäs muistin vie / Viides johtaa vähin erin muodonmuutokseen / Kuudes tukkii valtimot ja aivot paisuttaa / Ja seitsemäs saa silmät pullistumaan kuopistaan / Kahdeksatta levitetään kyliin kaukaisiin / Se johtaa yhä lisääntyviin…

Notes

Finnish Folk Pop group Meripioneerit, influenced by the Nueva canción latinoamericana movement which developed in Latin America in the 1960s, usually with leftist political and social messages Album Vietnamin linnut ("Vietnamese Birds"; front cover with images of doves); all songs on the album are Vietnam-related. Track list: A1 Lenin-setä asuu Venäjällä (Uncle Lenin Lives in Russia); A2 Vala (Oath); A3 Nukkuvat Vietnamin linnut (Sleeping Vietnamese Birds); A4 Oli kerran pikkuinen poika (Once Upon a Time a Little Boy); A5 Mustan sotamiehen laulu (Song of a Black Soldier); A6 Me haluamme elää tässä maassa (We Want to Live in This Country); A7 Sinä kysyt, ystävä, miksi (You Ask, Friend, Why); B1 Kuka murhasi Vietnamin linnut? (Who Killed Vietnamese Birds?); B2 Tarina pikku sankarista (The Story of the Little Hero); B3 Länsimaisen sotatieteen saavutukset (The Achievements of Western…

About the artist

Finnish folk-pop group, influenced by the Nueva canción latinoamericana movement which developed in Latin America in the 1960s, usually with leftist political and social messages. The group formed and disbanded in 1972; Vietnamin linnut (Love Records LRLP 63), arranged and produced by Kaj Chydenius, was their only record.

Themes

Anti-War

In collections

European Songs · Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]