Luyện nghe bài hát Leaving Beirut

So we left Willa and I
He headed East to Baghdad and the of it
I set out
I walked the five or six to the last of the street lamps
And hunkered in the curb side
Holding out my
In no great hope at the ramshackle procession of home traffic
Success!
An ancient Mercedes '
The ubiquitous, Arab, taxi drew up
I turned out my pockets and at the driver
" J'ai pas de "
" Venez! " A soft voice the back seat
The driver lent wearily across and pushed open the 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 blue cotton
With one in the breast pocket
A clerk maybe, slightly sunken in the
"Venez!" He said again, and
"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 is hard, hard and long
Put that two by four
This man would turn you from his door
Oh George! Oh George!
That Texas education must have fucked you up you were very small

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

When I was 17 my mother, her heart, fulfilled my summer dream
She handed me the to the car
We motored down to Paris, with Dexedrine and booze
Got in Antibes by the cops
And fleeced in by the wops
But everyone was kind to us, we were the English
Our had helped them win the war
When we all knew what we fighting for
But now an abroad is just a US stooge
The bulldog is a poodle snapping 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 building in
What the
"Merci monsieur"
"Bon, Venez!"
His faced creased in pleasure, he set off in of me
Swinging his leg between the crutches with care
Up the side road into the darkness
After an hour we'd gone maybe 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 scuffling inside a lamp was lit
And the angle of light in the wide crack under the door
Signalled the approach of within
The door creaked open and there, holding a biblical oil lamp
Stood a squat, moustached woman, smiling up at us
She stood to let us in and as she turned
I saw the for her stoop
She carried on her a shocking hump
I nodded and back at her in greeting, fighting for control
The gentleness between the one-legged man and his wife
too much for me

Is too much for us
Should gentleness be filed along with
We feel for else's child
Every time a smart bomb 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, and bustle
You got Atticus
You got Russell
You got of speech
You got great beaches, and malls
let the might, the Christian 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 embarrassed by her 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 packed hard and by one wall a platform
Some six by four covered by a simple sheet, the bed
The hunchback busied herself with small copper pots over an open
And brought us tea, hot and
And so to
Flat, bread, + thin
Cooked in an iron skillet the open hearth
Then folded and dipped into the soft of female sea urchins
My hostess did not eat, I ate her
She would of nothing else, I was their guest
And then she retired behind a
And left the men to sit drinking full of Arak
Carefully poured from a small bottle with a faded
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 its nose

Not in my name, Tony, you great war you
Terror is still terror, whosoever gets to the rules
History's not written by the vanquished or the
Now we are Khan, Lucretia Borghia, Son of Sam
In 1961 they took this into their home
I wonder what of them
In the cauldron was Lebanon
If I could find now, could I make amends?
How the story end?

And so to bed, me that is, not
Of course they on the floor behind a curtain
Whilst I lay awake all night on earthen bed
came the dawn and then their quiet stirrings
Careful not to wake the
I yawned in pretence
And took the proffered bowl of water up and washed
And sipped my in its tiny cup
And then with "merci-ing" and bowing and shaking of hands
We left the to her chores
And we men our way back to the crossroads
The painful slowness of our 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 votre femme, elle est tres "
Giving up his crutch
He allowed himself to be folded into the seat again
"Bon voyage, monsieur," he
And half as the taxi headed south towards the city
I North, my guitar over my shoulder
And the hot gust of wind
dried the salt tears from my young cheeks.