La Colombe
((Adapted from: La Colombe (by Jacques Brel) - 1959))
Composer(s): Jacques Brel
Performer(s): Judy Collins - 1966



Why all these bugles cry
These squads of young men drilled
To kill and to be killed
Stood waiting by the train

Why the orders loud and hoarse
Why the engine's groaning cough
As it strains to drag us all
Into the holocaust

Why crowds who sing and cry
And shout and fling us flowers
And trade their rights for ours
To murder and to die

The dove has torn her wings
So no more songs of love
We are not here to sing
We're here to kill the dove

Why must this moment come
When childhood has to die
When hope shrinks to a sigh
And speech into a drum

Why are they pale and still
Young boys trained over night
Concripts payed to kill
And dressed in gray to fight

These rainclouds massing tight
This train load battle bound
This moving burial ground
Goes thundering to the night

The dove has torn her wings
So no more songs of love
We are not here to sing
We're here to kill the dove

Why statues towering grave
Above the last defeat
Old words and lies repeat
Across a new made grave

And why the same still birds
That victory always brought
These hours of glory bought
By men with mounds of earth

Dead ash without a spark
Where cities used to be
Where guns probe every spark
And crush it into dust

The dove has torn her wings
So no more songs of love
We are not here to sing
We're here to kill the dove

And while your face undone
With jagged lines of tears
That gave in those first years
All the peace I'd ever want

Your body in the gloom
The platform fading back
Your shadow on the track
A flower upon a tomb

And why these days ahead
When I must let you cry
And live prepared to die
And to....

The dove has torn her wings
So no more songs of love
We are not here to sing
We're here to kill the dove