Credited on the record as Il Contemporaneo.
Drink americano
1971 · pläne S 88 101 · Modena, Italy
- Artist
- Canzoniere Il Contemporaneo
- Credited on the record as
- Il Contemporaneo
- Title
- Drink americano
- Release
- Zeitgenossen
- Year
- 1971
- Label
- pläne # S 88 101
- Format
- LP · Album
- Language
- Italian
- Country
- Modena, Italy
- Songwriter
- Il Contemporaneo
- Genre
- Folk · Contemporary Italian Folk Music
- Primary theme
- Peace, Protest & Anti-War
Lyrics
English: I’m glad to be in this world / Ever since I learned it’s round / Ever since I learned it’s no longer square / Ever since I learned that no one’s a thief. // But just the other day, a terrible doubt / Struck me while I was sitting in the living room— / I happened to be holding (forgive me, Pope!) / A copy of L’Unità that someone had given me. // On the third page, in plain sight, / There’s a long list of American bases; / On the front page, also in plain sight, / There’s another list—this one of massacres in Vietnam. // In Cambodia, there’s a coup d’état, / And people are being slaughtered in the name of NATO— / It’s just a matter of understanding how / One defines the term 'Vietnamization.' // It’s well known—this is nothing new— / That Americans don’t lay eggs; / Yet, they’re very much 'homebodies'— / They love their wives and soil their children’s diapers. // Now, I wonder: what drives them / To leave home and go off to commit massacres? / And, stingy as they are, they certainly wouldn’t / Hand out missiles to another nation like boxes of chocolates. // So, it must be a printing error— / There isn’t a single launch pad here in Italy! / And even if there were, we ought to be happy— / They gave them to us as a gift; oh, what dear friends! // And as for the massacres—well, / Deep down, they’re surely justified; / It’s just like with the Indians, who were 'uncivilized'— / They were wiped out by rifle fire. // It’s a habit—you can’t just take it away from them; / They…
Notes
Pläne S 88 101, "serie SIEG No. 1", recorded in West Berlin, with an 8-page German lyric booklet; 1971 (Meschiari, 2003). Track A7. Satire on American consumer culture and the war.
About the artist
Canzoniere Il Contemporaneo — political folk group from Modena, active 1967–1979 (Lara Malagoli, Sauro Malagoli, Willer Varini, Velasques Varieni). [Source: Meschiari, Canzoniere Il Contemporaneo 1967-1979, 2003]
Themes
From the release Zeitgenossen
In collections
European Songs · Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]