[1268] Twenty Tons of TNT
Guest poem sent in by Reed C Bowman <hammerquill@>
I have seen it estimated:
Somewhere between death and birth
There are now three thousand million
People living on this earth
And the stock-piled mass destruction
Of the Nuclear Powers-That-Be
Equals--for each man or woman--
Twenty tons of TNT.
Every man of every nation
(Twenty tons of TNT)
Shall receive this allocation
Twenty tons of TNT.
Texan, Bantu, Slav or Maori,
Argentine or Singhalee,
Every maiden brings this dowry
Twenty tons of TNT.
Not for thirty silver shilling
Twenty tons of TNT
Twenty thousand pounds a killing--
Twenty tons of TNT.
Twenty hundred years of teaching,
Give to each his legacy,
Plato, Buddha, Christ or Lenin,
Twenty tons of TNT
Father, Mother, Son and Daughter,
Twenty tons of TNT
Give us land and seed and water,
Twenty tons of TNT.
Children have no need of sharing;
At each new nativity
Come the ghostly Magi bearing
Twenty tons of TNT
Ends the tale that has no sequel
Twenty tons of TNT.
Now in death are all men equal
Twenty tons of TNT.
Teach me how to love my neighbour,
Do to him as he to me;
Share the fruits of all our labour
Twenty tons of TNT.
-- Michael Flanders
|
(of Flanders & Swann)
I ran across this a few weeks ago and wanted to send it in. "Contribution
to Statistics" (Poem #1267) reminded me of it again. Somewhat more
stark than the Szymborska poem, and from a rather different angle, but
with a similar message in the end. For Flanders & Swann, it's an
unusually political and astonishingly bleak song. From the population
statistic (and presumably from the destructive tonnage statistic as
well) it is clear this is quite old, from the height of the Cold War
arms race. Now we have twice as many people, I wonder if each has a
greater or a lesser allocation of explosive potential?
Anyway, like many pieces - poetic, dramatic, cinematic - which succeed
in being affectingly dire or tragic or bleak, this poem achieves its
effect by humourous touches and a humourous tone throughout, which
better sets off the message in its very real horror. The rhythm is
bouncy, the alliteration of the refrain makes it sound cute, and the
constant repetition of that refrain fits into F&S's usual comic style,
though in this case, it also serves to drive home that awful, absurd,
insane statistic. It's been way too long since I heard the recording,
but I assume the performance both reinforced the jaunty silliness to
draw you in, and came down hard enough on the refrain to make the point
(One textual note: this transcription is a corrected version of the main
text I've seen on the web, but I haven't been able to compare it to the
original, or find a printed copy, so problems may remain. I'm especially
leery of the "Twenty thousand pounds of killing" line, since - obviously
- it should be forty thousand, but all texts I've seen so far seem to
keep the "twenty" repetition even in the face of proper conversions.)
Reed
[addendum]
[Bob J subsequently submits a corrected, "official" version of the poem,
which has been used to replace the earlier copy. Here are his notes.]
I offer this as a copy from "The Songs of Michael Flanders and Donald
Swann"
Only minor differences e.g. "Twenty thousand pounds a killing"
International Music Publications Ltd First published in 1977 (This
edition 1996)
ISBN 1-85909-439-2
Bob J
From: "Matt Chanoff" <mattchanoff@>
The bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at
http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/nukenotes/mj03nukenote.html has a chart of
US weapons. If you add them up, you get approximately 1,291,089,000 tons.
At a world population of approximately 6,296 million (from
http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/popclockw, that's about .2 tons, or 400
lbs of explosives for every man woman and child. Assuming the Ruskies (as
long as we're getting into the swing of this) have twice as many, and the
Chinese plus everyone else about half as many, that gives us about .7 tons
per person. That's a lot less than 20 tons, but, as Robert Frost might have
said, it would suffice.
Matt
From: "Brian Truran" <bt@>
Nothing's changes really. I grew up with two constants. First, that
Michael Flanders and Donald Swan made excellent melodies and lyrics
which were cannily and sometimes chillingly accurate. Second, their
humour never failed (in 50 of my 54 years) to raise peels of laughter
when I play their songs.
Never before have I read this poem by Michael Flanders. Although,
perhaps the nuclear threat has now receded behind other, later, threats
it is still nonetheless ever present and may one day bear the fruit of
our destruction.
Chris
From: <amvet91alpha@>
I first heard this song when I think I was about 14 when it was aired on the
dr. demento show. I had a boombox with dual cassette and recorded the whole
show..ruined the tape after rewinding it to hear this song over and over
again. Yeah, I grew up in the shadow of the bomb. Is there a way to purchase
it? Either way..damn, but those lyrics are powerful.
From: Martin DeMello <martindemello@>
--- amvet91alpha@ wrote:
> I first heard this song when I think I was about 14 when it was aired on the
> dr. demento show. I had a boombox with dual cassette and recorded the whole
> show..ruined the tape after rewinding it to hear this song over and over
> again. Yeah, I grew up in the shadow of the bomb. Is there a way to purchase
> it? Either way..damn, but those lyrics are powerful.
There's a three-CD "Complete Flanders and Swann" collection that is hopefully
still in print - see
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000006T4S/026-0207505-0354005
martin