The Dubliners - The Death of the Bear lyrics
[The Dubliners - The Death of the Bear lyrics]
The balalaika rings silent from
Minsk to Red Square
The cortege assembles to bury the bear
Nadia Rostropovich looks on in despair
With Irina, Catharina and Olga
And quietly remembering her brother Ivan
Shot in the back in Afghanistan
The Stalinist purges, the snowy white grave
That claimed Boris, Dimitri and Igor
She remembered how proud
She cheered with the crowd
When Youri Gagarin sailed over the clouds
Nadia and Ivan shouted aloud
We put the first man in space
But that was before the feared KGB
Put a question mark over her own loyalty
To keep an eye on her
Comrades one two and three
Irina, Catharina and Olga
And poor uncle Vlad whom the Doc declared mad
For refusing to leave his beloved Leningrad
She stood in the doorway tearful and sad
When they frog marched him off to the Gulag
He took a last look at his own native hills
Where grew the red dogwoods
And wild daffodils
The look on his face was haunting her still
Comrade Nadia Rostropovich
Sometimes alone she'd think of the West
Ladies with opals adorning their breast
Park Avenue poseurs who behave like the Tsar
With silver coke spoons for their caviar
She'd reflect back to when
She'd just turned ten
And faithfully subscribed to fair
Play for all men
But seventy odd years of Bolshevik dreams
Had worn out her pride and left her no means
To cope with her own disillusions
If Trotsky and Engels saw the dachas and Zils
The Politburo boys with their
Hands in the till
The bear was long dead before he got ill
Was it the cure or was it the fever
No more reds under beds to freak-out the Feds
A defunct superpower in tatters and shreds
The marks left by Karl leave
Them queuing for bread
In the Caucasus Baltic and Urals
Minsk to Red Square
The cortege assembles to bury the bear
Nadia Rostropovich looks on in despair
With Irina, Catharina and Olga
And quietly remembering her brother Ivan
Shot in the back in Afghanistan
The Stalinist purges, the snowy white grave
That claimed Boris, Dimitri and Igor
She remembered how proud
She cheered with the crowd
When Youri Gagarin sailed over the clouds
Nadia and Ivan shouted aloud
We put the first man in space
But that was before the feared KGB
Put a question mark over her own loyalty
To keep an eye on her
Comrades one two and three
Irina, Catharina and Olga
And poor uncle Vlad whom the Doc declared mad
For refusing to leave his beloved Leningrad
She stood in the doorway tearful and sad
When they frog marched him off to the Gulag
He took a last look at his own native hills
Where grew the red dogwoods
And wild daffodils
The look on his face was haunting her still
Comrade Nadia Rostropovich
Sometimes alone she'd think of the West
Ladies with opals adorning their breast
Park Avenue poseurs who behave like the Tsar
With silver coke spoons for their caviar
She'd reflect back to when
She'd just turned ten
And faithfully subscribed to fair
Play for all men
But seventy odd years of Bolshevik dreams
Had worn out her pride and left her no means
To cope with her own disillusions
If Trotsky and Engels saw the dachas and Zils
The Politburo boys with their
Hands in the till
The bear was long dead before he got ill
Was it the cure or was it the fever
No more reds under beds to freak-out the Feds
A defunct superpower in tatters and shreds
The marks left by Karl leave
Them queuing for bread
In the Caucasus Baltic and Urals