From this wonderful song book:
By Irving Berlin in 1914 (100 years ago):
Stay Down Here Where You Belong
Down below
Down below
Sat the Devil talking to his son
Who wanted to go
Up above
Up above
He cried, “It’s getting too warm for me down here and so
I’m going up on Earth where I can have a little fun”.
The Devil simply shook his head and answered his son:
Stay down here where you belong
The folks who live above you don’t know right from wrong.
To please their kings they’ve all gone out to war
And not a one of them knows what he’s fighting for.
Way up above they say that I’m a Devil and I’m bad
Kings up there are bigger devils than your dad.
They’re breaking the hearts of mothers
Making butchers out of brothers
You’ll find more hell up there than there is
down below.
Kings up there
They don’t care
For the mothers who must stay at home
Their sorrows to bear
Stay at home
Don’t you roam
Although it’s warm down below,
you’ll find it’s warmer up there
If e’er you went up there, my son,
I know you’d be surprised
You’d find a lot of people are not civilized.
Another one:
The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Updated
Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching of the Sword;
He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger’s wealth is stored;
He hath loosed his fateful lightnings, and with woe and death has scored;
His lust is marching on.
I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the Eastern dews and damps;
I have read his doomful mission by the dim and flaring lamps—
His night is marching on.
I have read his bandit gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my pretensions, so with you my wrath shall deal;
Let the faithless son of Freedom crush the patriot with his heel;
Lo, Greed is marching on!”
We have legalized the strumpet and are guarding her retreat;
Greed is seeking out commercial souls before his judgement seat;
O, be swift, ye clods, to answer him! be jubilant my feet!
Our god is marching on!
In a sordid slime harmonious Greed was born in yonder ditch,
With a longing in his bosom—and for others’ goods an itch.
As Christ died to make men holy, let men die to make us rich—
Our god is marching on.
And one more:
Bring Back My Daddy To Me
A sweet little girl, with bright golden curls,
Sat playing with toys on the floor,
Her dad went away, to enter the fray,
At the start of this long bitter war;
Her mother said, “Dear your birthday is near,
Tomorrow your presents I’ll buy.”
The dear little child, quickly looked up and smiled,
And said with a tear in her eye:
“I don’t want a dress or a do-ly,
‘Cause dollies get broken ’round here,
I don’t want the skates, the books or the slates,
You bought for my birthday last year;
If you’ll bring the present I ask for,
Dear Mother, how happy I’ll be;
You can give all my toys To some poor girls and boys,
But bring back my Daddy to me!”
