Luyện nghe bài hát Leaving Beirut

So we Beirut Willa and I
He headed East to Baghdad and the of it
I set out
I walked the or six miles to the last of the street lamps
And hunkered in the curb dusk
out my thumb
In no great at the ramshackle procession of home bound traffic
Success!
An ancient 'dolmus '
The ubiquitous, Arab, shared drew up
I turned out my pockets and shrugged at the
" pas de l'argent "
" Venez! " A soft voice from the seat
The driver lent wearily and pushed open the back door
I to look inside at the two men there
One besuited, bespectacled, moustached, irritated, distant,
The other, the one who had spoken,
Frail, fifty five-ish, bald, sallow, in a short sleeved pale cotton shirt
With one biro in the breast
A maybe, slightly sunken in the seat
"Venez!" He again, and smiled
"Mais pas de l'argent"
"Oui, Oui, d'accord, Venez!"

Are the people that we should bomb
Are we so sure mean us harm
Is this our pleasure, punishment or
Is this a mountain we really want to climb
The road is hard, hard and
Put down that two by
man would never turn you from his door
Oh George! Oh George!
That Texas education have fucked you up when you were very small

He beckoned a small arthritic motion of his hand
Fingers together like a child goodbye
The driver put my old Hofner guitar in the boot my rucksack
And off we
" Vous etes Francais, "
" Non, "
" Ah! "
" que vous parlais Anglais, Monsieur? "
"Non, je regrette"
And so on
In talk between strangers, his French alien but correct
halting but eager to please
A lift, all, is a lift
Late moustache us brusquely
And some miles later the dolmus slowed at a lit by a single lightbulb
Swung a U-turn and stopped in a cloud of dust
I opened the and got out
But my benefactor no move to follow
The driver my guitar and rucksack at my feet
And waving away my thanks returned to the
Only to reappear a pair of alloy crutches
he leaned against the rear wing of the Mercedes.
He reached the car and lifted my companion out
Only one leg, the second trouser leg neatly pinned beneath a hip
" Monsieur, si vous voulez, ca sera un honneur pour
Si vous venez moi a la maison pour manger avec ma femme "

I was 17 my mother, bless her heart, fulfilled my summer dream
She me the keys to the car
We motored down to Paris, fuelled with Dexedrine and
Got bust in Antibes by the
And fleeced in by the wops
But everyone was kind to us, we the English dudes
Our dads had helped win the war
we all knew what we were fighting for
But now an Englishman abroad is a US stooge
The bulldog is a snapping round the scoundrel's last refuge

"Ma femme", thank God! but not queer
The taxi drove off us in the dim light of the swinging bulb
No in sight
the hell
"Merci monsieur"
"Bon, Venez!"
His faced creased in pleasure, he set off in of me
Swinging his leg between the with agonising care
Up the dusty side into the darkness
After an hour we'd gone maybe half a mile
When on the right I made out the low of a building
He called out in Arabic to announce our
And after scuffling inside a lamp was lit
And the angle of light in the wide crack under the door
Signalled the of someone within
The door creaked open and there, holding a biblical looking oil
a squat, moustached woman, stooped smiling up at us
She aside to let us in and as she turned
I saw the reason for her
She carried on her back a hump
I and smiled back at her in greeting, fighting for control
The between the one-legged man and his monstrous wife
too much for me

Is gentleness too for us
gentleness be filed along with empathy
We feel for someone child
Every time a smart bomb does its sums and gets it
else's child dies and equities in defence rise
America, America, please us when we call
You got hip-hop, be-bop, hustle and
You got Atticus
You got Jane
You got freedom of
You got great beaches, wildernesses and
Don't let the might, the right, fuck it all up
For you and the of the world

They excitedly
She went to take his crutches in routine of
He chiding,
We have a
She by her faux pas
my things and laid them gently in the corner
"Du the?"
We sat on meagre cushions in one corner of the single
The floor was earth packed hard and by one wall a raised
Some six foot by covered by a simple sheet, the bed
The hunchback busied with small copper pots over an open hearth
And brought us tea, hot and
And so to
Flat, bread, + thin
in an iron skillet over the open hearth
Then folded and dipped into the soft of female sea urchins
My did not eat, I ate her dinner
She would hear of else, I was their guest
And then she retired a curtain
And the men to sit drinking thimbles full of Arak
Carefully poured a small bottle with a faded label
Soon she reappeared,
Carrying in her arms their pride and joy, child.
I'd seen a squint like that
So severe that as one eye looked out the other disappeared behind its

Not in my name, Tony, you great war you
Terror is terror, whosoever gets to frame the rules
not written by the vanquished or the damned
Now we are Genghis Khan, Borghia, Son of Sam
In 1961 they took this child their home
I wonder became of them
In the cauldron was Lebanon
If I could find them now, could I make
How does the end?

And so to bed, me is, not them
Of course slept on the floor behind a curtain
Whilst I lay awake all night on their bed
came the dawn and then their quiet stirrings
Careful not to wake the
I yawned in great
And took the proffered bowl of water heated up and
And my coffee in its tiny cup
And then much "merci-ing" and bowing and shaking of hands
We left the to her chores
And we men made our way to the crossroads
The painful of our progress accentuated by the brilliant morning light
The dolmus duly
My host me one crutch and leaning on the other
my hand and smiled
"Merci, monsieur," I
" De "
" And merci a femme, elle est tres gentille "
Giving up his other
He allowed himself to be folded into the back again
"Bon voyage, monsieur," he
And half bowed as the taxi headed towards the city
I turned North, my over my shoulder
And the first hot of wind
dried the salt tears from my young cheeks.