Question about songs

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#1

Hello!

I would like to ask for assistance in finding on Internet texts of the songs that some army units had. You know some units make their own songs to sing together. Very often with silly lyrics.
Do these songs have a special name?
Do you know a site where I could read the lyrics. Or maybe you know a song yourself and could post it here?
It would be especially interesting to read the ones from the Cold War period.

The same question goes about songs sung among teenagers. Often grotesk and bizare ones. You know, kind of teenage folk culture product with unknown author.
Also cold war period is most interesting.

Here is an example from my childhood. I remember myself hearing it couple of times in 1980-s when I was in the primary school.
The melody is from a сatchy song from a popular Soviet cartoon about some funny animals.

[i]The missiles are slowly flying away.
Do not expect to meet them again.
We are a little sorry for America,
but China will be the next one.

Like blanket, like blanket chlorine is spreading
And сreeping under the mask.
Everyone, everyone hopes for the best…
The nuclear charge descends.

We might have been unfair to someone
By dropping the last 20 megatonn.
And the earth is burning and melting around
Where there used to be Washington.

Like blanket, like blanket chlorine is spreading
And kreepling under the mask.
Everyone, everyone hopes for the best…
The nuclear charge descends.[/i]

Here goes several verses about fate of other cities in the world.

Our song does not end here
We will build a base on the Moon.
And all that will remain of Earth
We will dump away…

Inspiring, is not it? :slight_smile:

#2

You must have been a bundle of laughs as a kid - singing about armageddon at primary school!

#3

Do I get you corretly that there were not any wicked verses or such told around your friends?

I think it was in part an attempt to face and therefore somewhat negate the fear of the nuclear holocaust.
As a kid in those rear moments when I though about it I was rather afraid that USA would make a surprise attack on us.

#4

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, my mates and I weren’t singing any songs but just wondering what the end of the world was going to look like as the missiles came over the horizon and how it was going to feel to be nuked, and how long death would take. And hoping it would be quick, or completely avoided.

Apart from that, we never sang any songs about anything to do with war, hot or cold, apart perhaps from a few lines some of us had picked up from fathers and uncles who had served in WWII.

We were fully aware of what nuclear war meant. Among other things, our telephone books had maps on the cover or maybe the inside cover showing the damage at various radii from an atom bomb dropped on the city centre. I knew that if one landed there, I and everybody I knew was permanently fucked.

But we didn’t waste time worrying about those risks. We just got on with being kids and doing kid things, like yabbying and riding our bikes for miles and playing kids’ games and doing whatever was available.

#5

Reading this makes me understand how lucky we have been in surviving the 80’s…

#6

i think its a little disturbing to know that while i was growing up, just worrying about normal high school stuff, kids in russia were singing about nuking us. how inspiring? no, just makes more glad communist bestiality is dead there.our kids werent taught to hope for their destruction, just for their people to escape communism and be allowed to live a better life. im glad we never fought and no more people had to die for a crazy idealogy that swallowed up millions of good people

#7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFtfSpn7PNU

#8

When I was a green teenager my father told me:“Igor, never try to translate jokes - do not put yourself in awkward situation.” I guess I have not learned sinse then…
That is the price one pays for not listening to parents.

Anyway, I understand that it might be looking strange from outside… but it would take some time to explain and would require some effort from… So I guess it is better to get on with our lives…

But still, if some one knows where to find the lirics of the platoon songs and such - please post the info.

#9

Me too!

#10

hi, egorka, i did not mean to imply that you meant offense.god bless you that you were worried about that, i just found it a little scary that our countries were closer to violence than i thought, but then again the cold war was like that, always uncertain. i hope you can find those lyrics, i may look around the net or some old books .good luck and god bless, rick

#11

No problem Igor, things here were pretty strange in the 50’s, and 60’s as well. No songs I remember, but tv commercials about the “Red Menace” heaping helpings of scary stuff people building fallout shelters, “duck, and cover” air raid drills every month in school, what to do when you see the flash of a nuke blast if you are outside. And plenty of footage showing the children of Russia, being “brainwashed” by school Cadre to become robots for the communist leaders.
There was a concrete company not far from my house, and in their parking lot were 5 or 6 different types of sample fallout shelters that they would build for you, whether in your basement, or outside under the grass, and magazines, and U.S. gov’t pamphlets about how to build one for yourself in your basement. how to stock it, what you would need to survive the coming attack from the “Godless Communists” .
Those were dark times for people everywhere, I’m glad that has gone. These days, we all have to be concerned for the little idiots of the world who may build, or steal a small nuke, and start a war with Israel.

#12

some stuff here
http://ingeb.org/Volksong.html