Tim McMullen's "Give Us A Hand, Grenada"

This is the full song. The partial spoken recitation of this song received the most angry and vitriolic comments of any of my videos on YouTube. Let's see how the full song is received. As I said to several of my detractors, Google Grenada and you will find that most historical accounts acknowledge Reagan's invasion of Grenada as a "wag the dog" attempt to deflect his deadly failure in Lebanon by waging war under false pretenses. This little excursion really was the dress rehearsal for the attacks on Noriega in Panama by Bush One and Saddam Hussein in Iraq by both Bushes. It's important to remember that both Noriega and Hussein were clients of American presidents, "friends" of Reagan, Bush, Rumsfeld, & Cheney! The Marxist revolution in Grenada was a natural target as an extension of the Reagan fueled Contra wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador—just the kind of mixing in neighbor's politics that was used as an excuse to attack Saddam.

Give Us A Hand, Grenada

Give us a hand, Grenada—We saved your land, Grenada;
We took command, Grenada, and showed you your place!
What you had planned, Grenada, had to be banned, Grenada;
We gave you a hand, Grenada, that blew up in your face.

It's a valuable lesson, our Grenadian Friends,
And one that you needed to learn:
If you get into trouble, we come on the double
To reduce you to rubble—we're the "one-way" to turn.

But you just wouldn't listen, our Grenadian Friends,
In spite of the danger you faced:
For a peasant revolt's not a pleasant revolt,
So your present revolt's been completely erased.

You broke the rule, Grenada—You were a fool, Grenada;
A Cuban tool, Grenada (An airstrip... "for tourists," indeed)!
But now it's cool, Grenada; tourists will drool, Grenada;
You'll be a jewel, Grenada—We'll fund the airstrip...
It's just what you need!

You murdered your leader, our Grenadian friends,
So your choice has been taken away:
We've killed five of our own, so we'll help you atone
By creating a clone who will see things our way!

Give us a hand, Grenada—we saved your land, Grenada;
We took command, Grenada, and showed you your place!
What you had planned, Grenada, had to be banned, Grenada.
We gave you a hand, Grenada, that blew up in your face.




©1982 Tim McMullen All Rights Reserved

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Tim
• McMullen
• Grenada
• Invasion
• Reagan
• anti-war
• protest
• topical
• satire
• patriot
• war
• bomb
• military
• hypocrisy
• history

[raymondcrooke]

Great song. I know all about the problem with irony. I had to remove my cover of Eric Bogle's anti-racist song "I Hate Wogs" because so many people thought I was a racist! That's apart from a few of my own songs where several people totally missed the point!

[TimMcMullen]

Thanks again, Raymond. I have been a teacher for nearly forty years, and teaching irony is very difficult, yet so many of the great authors use it both in fiction and in essays. My song, "The Governed's Mental Getcha'" is probably my best example of using an alternative persona in an ironic way. It tackles racists, sexists, war mongers, free marketeers, and religious hypocrites in one song. Fortunately, the audience on my video clearly appreciated the satire. We can only hope for such audiences.

[raymondcrooke]

Yes, that song is in my favourites list. In fact I was the first to leave a comment. Looking through the comments since then I see that you haven't attracted too many people who misunderstood your intent.

I used to teach a course in "Humour and Satire" and the concept of irony was definitely the hardest part to get across.

[TimMcMullen]

You are right about your getting there first and about the generally positive comments. I hadn't really gone back and looked at them for a while. Thanks for reminding me. "Humor and Satire" sounds like a class that I'd love to teach. I do a section on these concepts in my creative writing classes, and one of their four autobiographical pieces and one of their short stories is to be humorous or satirical, preferably both. It is not an easy genre to master....

Thanks again for all your Tubing.

Tim

[Nomadd1957]

so true

[bulbheadmyass]

So maybe that clears Grenada, waynemichael4, but what about VietNam? We helped them with their civil war and now they are not helping us at all with Iraq, after all we did for them. :o)

[waynemichael4]

What message r u tryna bring forth with this song?

[waynemichael4]

"Help in Iraq?" R u for real? Listen, I have 5 friends in Iraq right now. Grenada has quite a few sons n daughters in Iraq n Afghanistan, F U N know.

[waynemichael4]

Some people really need to educate themselves more.

[TimMcMullen]

Irony is a dangerous weapon—a lot of folks just don't get it...