Luyện nghe bài hát Leaving Beirut

So we left Beirut and I
He headed to Baghdad and the rest of it
I set out
I walked the or six miles to the last of the street lamps
And hunkered in the side dusk
out my thumb
In no great hope at the ramshackle procession of home bound
Success!
An ancient Mercedes '
The ubiquitous, Arab, shared drew up
I turned out my pockets and shrugged at the
" J'ai pas de "
" Venez! " A soft from the back seat
The driver wearily across and pushed open the back door
I stooped to look 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 blue cotton
one biro in the breast pocket
A clerk maybe, sunken in the seat
"Venez!" He again, and smiled
"Mais pas de l'argent"
"Oui, Oui, d'accord, Venez!"

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

He with a small arthritic motion of his hand
Fingers like a child waving goodbye
The driver put my old guitar in the boot with my rucksack
And off we
" Vous etes Francais, "
" Non, "
" Ah! "
" Est-ce que vous parlais Anglais, "
"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 miles later the dolmus slowed at a crossroads lit by a single
Swung through a U-turn and in a cloud of dust
I opened the and got out
But my made 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 alloy
Which he leaned against the wing of the Mercedes.
He reached the car and lifted my companion out
Only one leg, the second leg neatly pinned beneath a vacant hip
" Monsieur, si vous voulez, ca sera un honneur nous
Si vous venez avec moi a la maison manger avec ma femme "

I was 17 my mother, bless her heart, fulfilled my summer dream
She me the keys to the car
We down to Paris, fuelled with Dexedrine and booze
Got bust in by the cops
And fleeced in Naples by the
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 is just a US stooge
The is a poodle snapping round the scoundrel's last refuge

"Ma femme", thank God! Monopod but not
The taxi drove off leaving us in the dim light of the swinging
No in sight
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 dusty road into the darkness
After half an hour we'd gone maybe a mile
on the right I made out the low profile of a building
He called out in to announce our arrival
And some scuffling inside a lamp was lit
And the changing angle of light in the crack under the door
the approach of someone within
The door creaked open and there, holding a biblical oil lamp
Stood a squat, woman, stooped smiling up at us
She stood aside to let us in and as she
I saw the for her stoop
She carried on her a shocking hump
I nodded and smiled back at her in greeting, fighting for
The gentleness the one-legged man and his monstrous wife
Almost too for me

Is gentleness too for us
gentleness be filed along with empathy
We feel for someone child
Every a smart bomb does its sums and gets it wrong
Someone child dies and equities in defence rise
America, America, please hear us when we
You got hip-hop, be-bop, and bustle
You got Finch
You got Russell
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 rest of the

talked excitedly
She went to take his crutches in of care
He chiding,
We have a
She by her faux pas
Took my and laid them gently in the corner
"Du the?"
We sat on meagre in one corner of the single room
The floor was earth hard and by one wall a raised platform
Some six by four covered by a simple sheet, the bed
The hunchback busied herself with small copper pots over an open
And us tea, hot and sweet
And so to
Flat, unleavened bread, +
Cooked in an iron over the open hearth
Then and dipped into the soft insides of female sea urchins
My hostess did not eat, I ate her
She would hear of nothing else, I was their
And then she retired a curtain
And left the men to sit drinking thimbles of Arak
Carefully poured from a bottle with a faded label
Soon she reappeared,
Carrying in her arms pride and joy, their child.
I'd never seen a squint like
So severe that as one eye looked out the other disappeared behind its

Not in my name, Tony, you war leader you
Terror is still terror, gets to frame the rules
History's not written by the or the damned
Now we are Genghis Khan, Borghia, Son of Sam
In 1961 they took this child into their
I wonder became of them
In the cauldron that was
If I could find them now, could I make
How the story end?

And so to bed, me that is, not
Of course they slept on the behind a curtain
Whilst I lay awake all night on their bed
Then came the dawn and their quiet stirrings
not to wake the guest
I yawned in pretence
And took the proffered bowl of 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 to her chores
And we men made our way back to the
The slowness of our progress accentuated by the brilliant morning light
The duly reappeared
My host me one crutch and leaning on the other
Shook my and smiled
"Merci, monsieur," I
" De "
" And merci a femme, elle est tres gentille "
Giving up his crutch
He allowed himself to be folded the back seat again
"Bon voyage, monsieur," he
And half bowed as the taxi headed south towards the
I turned North, my guitar over my
And the first hot gust of
Quickly the salt tears from my young cheeks.