| Al Stewart – Nostradamus Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| Yeah, pretty straightforward, he's got the Great Fire of London in 1666, Napoleon (but in the song it's "Napoloron" but Nostradamus wrote "Pau, Nay, Loron"), the Spanish civil war and Francisco Franco, Hitler ("Hister" not bad), although the supposed reference to the Kennedys is a little weaker in the actual Michel de Nostredame version. I'm curious as to whether the English language "prophecies" in the song are purely the work of Al Stewart or if he got these words from some other source. The few I've found back to the original writings don't seem to look anything like what's in the song. Love the song though. | |
| Al Stewart – Roads to Moscow Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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Follows pretty much a literal history filled with all manner of specifics, but all of it from the Soviet perspective, particularly how those Red Army troops fortunate enough, or so they thought, to survive being taken prisoner by the Germans or even to escape the captivity of the Germans, only to discover that Stalin's (Beria's that is) people rounded them up and imprisoned or killed nearly all of them. Stalin's secret police, what we think of as the KGB but I think it was still the NKVD at that time, was run by a particularly vicious henchman by the name of Lavrenti Beria. After Stalin died, one the very first things to happen under Kruschev was to have Beria shot. No one was safe as long as that psycho was still in existence and it is ironic that he was shot in the basement of the Lubyanka prison - right where he so often enjoyed dispensing the very same form of "justice" personally. The earlier commenter who pointed out the Stalin was responsible for a far greater number of deaths under his leadership than Hitler was is quite correct (for instance, see the biography by Robert Conquest, but there are others) but did not point out that Chairman Mao has them both beat, and by a very wide margin. So the narrator sticks to a very factual account of the war that even includes obvious references like "Tigers" (the legendary Tiger tank, what else?). Stewart is probably saluting the massive sacrifices made by the many Russians who shed their blood and died by the millions to defeat Hitler. None of us in the west made any sacrifices even close to this and in Russia there is a certain bitterness to this day about that. The most disturbing thing about it is that anyone over the age of 8 would not immediately recognize this from the lyrics of the song. Read a book! |
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