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Donna Donna Lyrics
Donna Donna (A. Zeitlin, S. Secunda)
On a wagon bound for market
There's a calf with a mournful eye
High above him there's a swallow
Winging swiftly through the sky
How the winds are laughing
They laugh with all the their might
Laugh and laugh the whole day through
And half the summer's night
Donna Donna Donna Donna
Donna Donna Donna Don
Donna Donna Donna Donna
Donna Donna Donna Don
"Stop complaining, said the farmer
Who told you a calf to be
Why don't you have wings to fly with
Like the swallow so proud and free"
How the winds are laughing
They laugh with all the their might
Laugh and laugh the whole day through
And half the summer's night
Donna Donna Donna Donna
Donna Donna Donna Don
Donna Donna Donna Donna
Donna Donna Donna Don
Calves are easily bound and slaughtered
Never knowing the reason why
But whoever treasures freedom
Like the swallow has learned to fly
How the winds are laughing
They laugh with all the their might
Laugh and laugh the whole day through
And half the summer's night
Donna Donna Donna Donna
Donna Donna Donna Don
Donna Donna Donna Donna
Donna Donna Donna Don
There's a calf with a mournful eye
High above him there's a swallow
Winging swiftly through the sky
They laugh with all the their might
Laugh and laugh the whole day through
And half the summer's night
Donna Donna Donna Don
Donna Donna Donna Donna
Donna Donna Donna Don
Who told you a calf to be
Why don't you have wings to fly with
Like the swallow so proud and free"
They laugh with all the their might
Laugh and laugh the whole day through
And half the summer's night
Donna Donna Donna Don
Donna Donna Donna Donna
Donna Donna Donna Don
Never knowing the reason why
But whoever treasures freedom
Like the swallow has learned to fly
They laugh with all the their might
Laugh and laugh the whole day through
And half the summer's night
Donna Donna Donna Don
Donna Donna Donna Donna
Donna Donna Donna Don
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Correct that, Joan Baez wrote the song originally, oops!
@PisH87 Joan certainly did not write this originally. It is a translation of a Yiddish song.
@PisH87 Joan certainly did not write this originally. It is a translation of a Yiddish song.
To me this song is good but not good enough to account for its over-popularity. There is a lot of translations of this Save-the-calves-from-being-eaten poem, where all the talking does the farmer who thinks that his calf is eyeing him complainingly. In Japan version there is only the road, winds and swallow; the dialogue just do not fit in. In my favorite of the many Russian versions in the end the farmer is giving the calf a pair of wings. In real life, when do we make some meat trees already?
I believe Donovan wrote this song as a metaphor of the events of the holocaust. The calf in the wagon represents a Jewish person, the swallow as the non-Jewish Aryan, the wind as the Nazi soldiers, and as a side-note, the farmer is the slave driver sending the calf to the market (gas camps) for slaughter.
Baez did not write the song, it was written in 1940, a year before Baez was born. The holocaust metaphor is appropriate though.
The holocaust metaphor is certainly appropriate but not entirely doom laden or even necessary The calf does not have free will. The swallow though free does not choose to be so.The calf's fate is certain for as in Jude the Obscure where in the beautiful pig slaughter episode Hardy shows us Jude's sentimentality and sensitivity, but his practical and down-to-earth wife simply says, "Folk must eat". The Tevia-like wagoner knows this but his view is balanced. If the story is Jewish in essence at all it is in the fact that the calf would be ritually slaughtered and therefore accorded...
The holocaust metaphor is certainly appropriate but not entirely doom laden or even necessary The calf does not have free will. The swallow though free does not choose to be so.The calf's fate is certain for as in Jude the Obscure where in the beautiful pig slaughter episode Hardy shows us Jude's sentimentality and sensitivity, but his practical and down-to-earth wife simply says, "Folk must eat". The Tevia-like wagoner knows this but his view is balanced. If the story is Jewish in essence at all it is in the fact that the calf would be ritually slaughtered and therefore accorded some natural dignity. Our Shalom Aleikom character is being rueful and philosophical. The winds are of course elemental and cannot literally laugh but saying so helps us to feel.
This song has been written for Jewish people who were taken to the camps by Germans. The calf represents a Jewish person and the swallow represents a freedom that a Jewish does not have.