| The People's Flag is Palest Pink... |
[May. 5th, 2005|09:38 pm] |
Steeling myself for the ordeal of sitting up watching the election results come in: it must be time for another song. Google couldn't find the words of The People's Flag is Palest Pink: in fact, almost all the references to "pink" and "flag" were about rainbow coalitions and gay pride - times have changed, and not only for the worse!
So here's another song I learned from my mother. It is sung to the tune of Green Grow the Rushes, and is traditional in the sense that people who know it seem to have learned it by ear, from each other. This is reconstructed from memory, and parts of it are certainly wrong (there were, for example, six Tolpuddle martyrs), but as near as I can make it, it's the song I learned at my mother's knee.
It is cumulative; that is, you add a line each time round.
I'll sing you one, O
Red fly the banners, O
What is your one, O?
One is workers' unity and evermore shall be so.
Two, two, a man's own hands,
Working for a living, O
Three, three the Rights of Man
Four for the four great teachers
Five for the years of the Five Year Plan,
And four for the four years taken.
Six for the days of the working week
Seven for the Tolpuddle martyrs
Eight for the hours of the working day
Nine for the days of the General Strike
Ten for the days that shook the world
Eleven for the eleven republics
Twelve for the works of Lenin. |
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