www.adambrodsky.com
Ballad of Abraham Gottlieb
Hookers Hicks and Heebs
2002 Permanent Records
My first name it is Abraham my last name is Gottlieb
I was born in Brooklyn to a Jewish family
I enlisted in the army in the fall of ‘43
I walked beside a Sherman tank in Patton’s infantry
We got eaten by mosquitoes for eight weeks in Biloxi
I said to our sergeant I said sergeant if you please
I’d gladly sail the ocean to fight the sneaky Japanese
But I’d rather go to Europe to drive the Nazis to their knees
I’d rather drive the Nazis back to hell or Germany
We finally got the call June 6, 1944
On destroyers in the channel we’d break through the Atlantic wall
They loaded us in Higgins boats bound for Normandy
To send the Nazis back to hell or back to Germany
It was the longest day I’d ever lived but I made it to the end
But many were less lucky some 13,000 men
The Germans fired their 88s from pillboxes so deep
But from Omaha to Utah we took every beach
From gold to sword to Juno we took every beach
Then we started marching to take back the whole of France
Against the mighty Allies they never had a chance
On the August 25th we liberated gay Paris
I remember at least three French girls I bet they remember me
As their sorrow and their pity faded from their memory
They danced beneath the Eiffel Tower in drunken revelry
The French girls who had taken German soldiers to their beds
Were dragged down to the center of town the hair shaved from their heads
Next we took the low countries and straightened out the mess
Made years ago at Dunkirk and the fiasco at Dieppe
Every hill my battalion took was a hill that we did hold
With one last minor setback the Battle of the Bulge
Then o’er the Rhine to Germany to make the madness end
A journey started off as boys we finished up as men
Though the horrors I had seen my eyes could scarcely be called damp
Compared to how I cried the day we liberate the camp
By now you’ve seen the pictures probably seen the movies too
Well brother let me tell you every word of it is true
Walking talking skeletons we offered them our chow
But in ghastly gastro irony they could not keep it down
I told them don’t feel bad army grub can taste like hell
But in bivouac that night I couldn’t keep mine down as well
Next day as we wait supplies from the red ball express
I was trying not to cry leaning on a barbed wire fence
Beside a pile of corpses lay a curled up refugee
At first I thought that she was dead but then I saw her slightly breathe
Her circumstance made it tough to tell but she looked about nineteen
I cried as I realized she was the same age as me
I approached her tiny body and I gently touched her withered arm
Her eyes they filled with fear when she saw my uniform
In a Yiddish voice she whispered "sir I must tell you I’m a Jew"
Through my tears in Brooklyn Yiddish I said "maidela, ich ben a Yid, too"
Well it wasn’t too much longer till the Allies took Berlin
And the world was realigned again cause the good guys they did win
Almost half of my platoon gave their lives to keep it free
And sent the Nazis back to hell or back to Germany
You may ask what happened to the little refugee
We were married in ‘46 in my shul on Delancy Street
Now we’re old and gray but she’s still sitting next to me
And the only thing I’d leave her for is to fight in WWIII
For although I am an old old man, with titanium hips and knees
I would be the first in line if my country needed me
I’d gladly walk through hell and back to keep this big world free
And drive the Nazis back to hell or back to Germany
And drive the Nazis back to hell or back to Germany
