Now I've got my payment
For the service that I gave
They've given me my ticket
To this place beyond the grave

I suppose it's kind of funny
I suppose it's kind of sad
Thinking back on all the times we had

But it's kind of hot and smoky
In this anteroom to Hell
And I won't make up a story
'Cause you know the truth so well
It's much too late to worry
That we never had a chance
And when Joe the Georgian gets here
We will dance, dance dance
When Joe the Georgian gets here
We will dance

We all set off together
On this sorry ship of state
When the captain took the fever
We were hijacked by the mate
And he steered us through the shadows
Upon an angry tide
And cast us one by one over the side

But it's kind of hot and smoky
In this anteroom to Hell
And I won't make up a story
'Cause you know the truth so well
It's much too late to worry
That we never had a chance
And when Joe the Georgian gets here
We will dance, dance dance
When Joe the Georgian gets here
We will dance

There's Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin and the rest
We're sharpening our pitchforks
And we're heating up the ends
We've got a few surprises
For the mate when he appears
I hope he likes the next few million years

And it's kind of hot and smoky
In this anteroom to Hell
And I won't make up a story
'Cause you know the truth so well
It's much too late to worry
That we never had a chance

And when Joe the Georgian gets here
We will dance, dance dance
When Joe the Georgian gets here
We will dance


Lyrics submitted by VampedVixen

Joe the Georgian song meanings
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    General Comment

    That Al Green missed the point by that much. Like me Al is an old man now, but we weren't in the 1970s when this song came out. Stalin was still alive when we were born, but we don't really remember him ourselves. Much better men (and women) came before who have no excuse at all for missing that point, or for from concealing it from us: "The Captain" is Lenin, and if he had not took the fever, there is no indication he would have done any better than Joe the Georgian. Here's an example of different were the Captain and his First Mate:

    "Promises, like piecrusts, were made to be broken." --V.I. Lenin "Gratitude is a disease of dogs." --I.V. Stalin

    Eric Arthur Blair, writing as George Orwell, had so much fun in Animal Farm telling us how bad Stalin really was that he recast all of it and had more fun writing 1984. Both are very, very good books, but they are not great books, because along with concealing his true name, Blair concealed the same truth. Neither of his finely-woven parables has a figure that could be Lenin.

    If you read only one Orwell book before you go to any place beyond the grave, be sure it is Homage to Catalonia. You can skip For Whom the Bell Tolls and the rest of Hemingway, at least about Spain; Hemingway drank in Spain and wrote stories; Blair fought and bled for the Spanish Republic, in consideration of which he was nearly executed by one of Stalin's stooges. Blair's wife got him off the Spanish Earth before he could be put under it.

    DocFaustuson September 10, 2010   Link

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