Luyện nghe bài hát Leaving Beirut

So we left Beirut and I
He headed East to and the rest of it
I set out
I walked the five or six miles to the last of the lamps
And in the curb 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 and shrugged at the driver
" J'ai pas de "
" Venez! " A soft from the back seat
The driver lent wearily across and open the back door
I stooped to look inside at the two men
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
one biro in the breast pocket
A clerk maybe, slightly in the seat
"Venez!" He again, and smiled
"Mais pas de l'argent"
"Oui, Oui, d'accord, Venez!"

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

He beckoned with a small motion of his hand
Fingers together like a child goodbye
The driver put my old guitar in the boot with my rucksack
And off we
" etes Francais, monsieur? "
" Non, "
" Ah! "
" Est-ce que vous Anglais, Monsieur? "
"Non, je regrette"
And so on
In small talk between strangers, his French but correct
Mine but eager to please
A lift, after all, is a
Late moustache us brusquely
And some miles later the slowed at a crossroads lit by a single lightbulb
through a U-turn and stopped in a cloud of dust
I opened the and got out
But my benefactor made no to follow
The dumped my guitar and rucksack at my feet
And waving my thanks returned to the boot
Only to reappear with a pair of alloy
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 pinned beneath a vacant hip
" Monsieur, si voulez, ca sera un honneur pour nous
Si vous venez avec moi a la maison pour manger avec ma "

When I was 17 my mother, her heart, fulfilled my summer dream
She handed me the to the car
We motored to Paris, fuelled 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 had helped them win the war
When we all what we were fighting for
But now an Englishman is just a US stooge
The bulldog is a snapping round the scoundrel's last refuge

"Ma femme", thank God! Monopod but not
The drove off leaving us in the dim light of the swinging bulb
No in sight
the hell
"Merci monsieur"
"Bon, Venez!"
His faced in pleasure, he set off in front of me
Swinging his leg the crutches with agonising care
Up the dusty side road 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 called out in to announce our arrival
And after some scuffling a lamp was lit
And the changing of light 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, moustached woman, stooped up at us
She stood aside to let us in and as she
I saw the reason for her
She on her back a shocking hump
I nodded and smiled back at her in greeting, fighting for
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 else's
Every time a smart bomb its sums and gets it wrong
Someone else's child dies and in defence rise
America, America, hear us when we call
You got hip-hop, be-bop, hustle and
You got Atticus
You got Russell
You got of speech
You got beaches, wildernesses and malls
Don't let the might, the right, fuck it all up
For you and the rest of the

They excitedly
She to take his crutches in routine of care
He chiding,
We have a
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 floor was earth packed and by one wall a raised platform
Some six foot by covered by a simple sheet, the bed
The hunchback busied herself with small copper 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 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 full of
Carefully poured a small bottle with a faded label
Soon she reappeared,
Carrying in her arms their and joy, their child.
I'd seen a squint like that
So severe that as one eye looked out the disappeared behind its nose

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 Khan, Lucretia Borghia, Son of Sam
In 1961 they took child into their home
I what became of them
In the cauldron was Lebanon
If I could find now, could I make amends?
How does the end?

And so to bed, me that is, not
Of they slept on the floor behind a curtain
Whilst I lay awake all on their earthen bed
Then came the dawn and their quiet stirrings
Careful not to the guest
I in great pretence
And took the proffered bowl of heated up and washed
And my coffee in its tiny cup
And then with "merci-ing" and bowing and shaking of hands
We left the woman to her
And we men our way back to the crossroads
The painful of our progress accentuated by the brilliant morning light
The dolmus duly
My host gave me one crutch and on the other
Shook my hand and
"Merci, monsieur," I
" De "
" And merci a votre femme, elle est gentille "
up his other crutch
He allowed himself to be into the back seat again
"Bon voyage, monsieur," he
And half bowed as the taxi headed towards the city
I North, my guitar over my shoulder
And the first hot gust of
Quickly dried the salt tears my young cheeks.