Luyện nghe bài hát Leaving Beirut

So we left Beirut and I
He headed East to Baghdad and the of it
I set out
I walked the five or six miles to the last of the lamps
And hunkered in the curb dusk
Holding out my
In no hope at the ramshackle procession of home bound traffic
Success!
An ancient Mercedes '
The ubiquitous, Arab, shared drew up
I out my pockets and shrugged at the driver
" J'ai pas de "
" Venez! " A soft voice from the seat
The driver lent wearily across and pushed 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 sleeved pale blue cotton shirt
With one biro in the pocket
A clerk maybe, slightly in the seat
"Venez!" He said again, and
"Mais pas de l'argent"
"Oui, Oui, d'accord, Venez!"

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

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

When I was 17 my mother, bless her heart, my summer dream
She handed me the to the car
We motored down to Paris, with Dexedrine and booze
Got bust in by the cops
And in Naples by the wops
But everyone was to us, we were the English dudes
Our dads had helped win the war
When we all what we were fighting for
But now an Englishman is just a US stooge
The bulldog is a poodle snapping round the scoundrel's last

"Ma femme", thank God! Monopod but not
The taxi drove off leaving us in the dim light of the bulb
No building in
What the
"Merci monsieur"
"Bon, Venez!"
His faced in pleasure, he set off in front of me
Swinging his leg between the crutches with care
Up the side road into the darkness
After half an hour we'd gone half a mile
on the right I made out the low profile of a building
He out in Arabic to announce our arrival
And after scuffling inside a lamp was lit
And the changing angle of in the wide crack under the door
Signalled the of someone within
The creaked open and there, holding a biblical looking oil lamp
Stood a squat, woman, stooped smiling up at us
She aside to let us in and as she turned
I saw the for her stoop
She carried on her a shocking hump
I nodded and smiled at her in greeting, fighting for control
The gentleness between the one-legged man and his wife
Almost too for me

Is too much for us
Should gentleness be along with empathy
We feel for someone else's
Every time a smart does its sums and gets it wrong
Someone else's child and equities in defence rise
America, America, please hear us we call
You got hip-hop, be-bop, hustle and
You got Finch
You got Russell
You got of speech
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 in routine of care
He chiding,
We a guest
She by her faux pas
Took my things and laid them in the corner
"Du the?"
We sat on cushions in one corner of the single room
The was earth packed hard and by one wall a raised platform
Some six foot by four by a simple sheet, the bed
The busied herself with small copper pots over an open hearth
And brought us tea, hot and
And so to
Flat, unleavened bread, +
Cooked in an iron over the open hearth
Then folded and dipped into the soft insides of female sea
My hostess did not eat, I ate her
She would hear of nothing else, I was guest
And she retired behind a curtain
And left the men to sit drinking thimbles full of
Carefully poured from a small bottle with a label
Soon she reappeared,
Carrying in her their pride and joy, their child.
I'd never seen a like that
So severe that as one eye looked out the other disappeared behind its

Not in my name, Tony, you great war you
is still terror, whosoever gets to frame the rules
History's not written by the vanquished or the
Now we are Khan, Lucretia Borghia, Son of Sam
In they took this child into their home
I wonder what of them
In the cauldron was Lebanon
If I could find them now, could I make
How the story end?

And so to bed, me is, not them
Of course slept on the floor behind a curtain
Whilst I lay awake all on their earthen bed
Then came the dawn and their quiet stirrings
not to wake the guest
I in great pretence
And took the bowl of water heated up and washed
And sipped my in its tiny cup
And with much "merci-ing" and bowing and shaking of hands
We left the woman to her
And we men our way back to the crossroads
The slowness of our progress accentuated by the brilliant morning light
The dolmus reappeared
My host gave me one and leaning on the other
Shook my hand and
"Merci, monsieur," I
" De "
" And merci a votre femme, est tres gentille "
up his other crutch
He allowed to be folded into the back seat again
"Bon voyage, monsieur," he
And bowed as the taxi headed south towards the city
I turned North, my guitar my shoulder
And the first hot of wind
dried the salt tears from my young cheeks.