adside THE NATIONAL TOPICAL SONG MAGAZINE NOVEMBER PRICE -- ,O¢ IN THIS ISSUE ABERFAN, Wales, Oct. 22 (AP) - Heavy rain fel! on this grieving Welsh village today, 'bringing fear that a death­ dealing, mountain of coal slag might move again and Imperil, nearly 2,000 exhausted rescue workers toiling in the ruins of a buried .schooL Police said the death toll In this greatest tragedy of modern Wales may rise to 220 - most of the victims the young children of miners. "The Aberfan Coal. Tip Tragedy" by TOM PARROTT " ****** ALSO " , Gush I Holston.' By WILL McLEAN "Cindy's Cryin'" By TOM PAXTON "Long Time" By JOAN COSMAN ****** AND FRAN TAYLOR MATT McGINN MIKE KELLIN PETE SEEGER MURDERED BY THE AUTHORITIES Of THE STATE OF UTAH, NOY.19, t9\S "The Ballad of Joe Hi.ll" " • •• a land of Pain and Death." Artwork by GARY DARK By PHIL OCHS - 2 - by Lot~ of Little ~oldiet~ JOHN BRUNNER Words: MATT McGINN @ 1966 Matt McGinn Am A Little Beggarman" as 5U.."lg by ToI1llllY Makem & the Clancys Robert McNeil!, aged 26, a scrap burner, was arrested a& a deserter for jailing to respond to calling-up papers sent to him 61 years ago, However, he was later sent h()fl'le. My name is what you Where have you been six years, Private - McNeill? F, Where have 'lOti bf:en sb: yean,· matf1l with no gun? ~Sa ...J At my home, colonel, b Ail' my home, colonel- I~\"e a: 'Wife and three kid! and i w~nt to go home. Where are: yom orders, Private McNeill? Where are your orders, m3lft with flO soldiers and as sure as the day ,,fOuld come, I sent into battle with the gun? ~1 ~ ~7 ~em Dian't get them colonel, Didn't get them c.olonel. rYe .1 wife all'lld ttnea lei ..!!!i, ~fid ~ 'Want tQ; mu rO·'Gl(ti F'; Gi QiiqC; Eli r ~ to go home. rat tle of me drum. I put up-on the table and I, marched all aT01md \enI YOijJlre ,; *' them them de5ierter,'* PMV.1lt~ M.Nem,*' :D 1 r: if You're il:l deserter, man with no gun .. 1'", • scrap burner, colonel. ;;Cal I'm iii scrap burner t;olonel. jEA g £8 a JJijJ J,BII1 JJ rVG O'!i wife and three khb, and want battered them with cannonballs and watched falling down; I had lots of little to go home. them You could haVE: burned people~ Private '" Lf McNeil!, You .eould have burned peo-pie. man WQth nc gui'll. crosses t at I laid up-on the & Bui' stay in your civvies. But stay in your c!V'yies. There might be an Qutcry ~ ycu~d better go home. iii "h;IV AJ0" Edward, My Son sent them home to bed. VETERANS OF WORLD WAR ONE Four U,S. veterans of the First World War have written to President Johnson offering to serve in Vietnam, They say they want to give younger men a 2. I went round and asked the neighbors for a nickel or a dime chance to 'live. So that I could buy some soldiers just to help me pass the time Veteran. of World War One VI-et-Nam! They were ah.ays very kindly L'1 supplying me with guns Veterans of World War One, And some of them even let me play at soldiers with their sons. Vi-et-Nam! (Cho. ) We still know how to fire a gUJi., Hanky-panky Vl-et-Nam! 3. Whenever I went to the shop to buy me guns and tanks In war we~re in our element­ Vi-et-Nam! The man there always sniled and patted me head and whispered Thanks In war we're in o-ur element If it wasnlt for your soldier game I don't know what I'd do Vi-et-Nam! In war we're in our element, You keep me business busy, Son, so here is an extra few. (Cho.) We wrote to tell the president. Hanky .. panky Vi~etaNam! . 4. One day I bought some aeroplanes but here' was what I found I We could have died back there in When I sent them in with bombs to help me army on the ground France - VI-et-Nam! They bombed up every soldier there and proved a sorrowful flop We could have died back there in 1 France - VI-et-Na.."n! I had to buy another hundred crosses from the shop. (Cho.) We could have died back there in 'I\. France, 5. I would very much like if I could teach this little game of guns Take us and give those kids a chance! To my seven beautiful daughters and my fourteen lovely sons Hanky-panky VI-et-Nam! But the man in the shop he gave me down a bomb from off the shelf iletter that old men should be dead - It ble'l' up every soldier, all me neighbors and meself. (Cho.) Vi-et-Nam! Better that old men should be dead­ Vi-et-Nam! Retter that old men should be dead Than youngsters with their lives ailead, Hanky-pank-y Vi-et-Naml Mademoiselle from Armentie,es BR{]AIJSI..J.J£ ~7b - :3 - THE ABERFAN COAL TJ:P TRAGEDY Words & Music by TOM PARROT'l' @ 1966 by Tom Parrott t.. ~ 'D are hardy, strong • 1# t1Tl nev-er grow old And lives purchase how many-· tons of coal. The little school of Pantgl.as* lay where the mountain loomed, ABERFAN, Wales, Oct, 22 CUP!) - And some two hundred children took their classes in its rooms, "Today it is raining and I 'hall not be But the day fall recess was to begin, they went to meet their doom, able to play with Carl after school. Last night I played with my airplane and I Not knowing lithe green hollow" would soon become their tomb. (Cho.) played with my big dog and I played It was just 9:00 A.M. when they opened up the door, with my cat," Having reread this ent,y in his yel­ And in came the students, two hundred, maybe more, low-bound school diary, the young But nobody knew what the mountain had in store, author took up his red crayon and The lucky ones were tardy, the others are no more. (Cho.) headed a 'new page he would never finish, "I played with my big dog and I played with my cat," "Paul, October 21 , , ," It was 9 :30 a,m, and the class was II Signed "Paul, October 21, there! s nothing after that, begi'nning its lessons in the little school­ For the coal tip came down, and everyone was trapped, house of Pantglas-"the green hollew," And now there's only coal slag where little Paul once sat. (Cho.) i11 Welsh, In eighteen hundred and seventy-four, the first pit shaft went down, Armost unhearC1, except for a low And they started piling mining waste on the slopes above the town, whine like that of a distant jet, part of the black mountain of coal debris loom­ And everybody knew that the practice was unsound, ing over the village was sliding down on But for ninety-two years no better place was found. (Cho.) a cushion of rainwater. And at 9 :30 R.m, the silent killer, The men of the National Coal Board said that they'd known from the first, half a million tons worked loose fl'om the 8oo-foot high mound by heavy That the coal tips they had permitted were a worry and a curse, downpours, smashed the schoolhouse But I've heard that speech so many times, and it always sounds rehearsed, and the homes around it under a tidal If the coal tip was a murderer then the Coal Board's crime was worse. (Cho. wave of muck, Paul did not get a chance to finish The chjldren were pretty, the children were fine, his account of the day. The children went to school in the shadow of the mine, LONDON, Oct. 24~A Welsh­ But with the coal tip up above them they ,.. ere running out of time, ma,n \vhn lost his wife and two And they were "buried alive by the ministry of mines." (Cho. ) S()}lS in lhe avalanche that killed pcrhaps 200 people in Abcl'fan, Wales, Friday, said today fit an 'I inrplcst tha,t the canse of deaUl Inside the school children prayed be- shu\lld be listed as "buried a.live fore classes. .by the National Cnal Board," "Thank you for the world so sweet I There WNe 60 people at the "Thank you for the food we eat inrtuest, which was confined ttl "Thank you for the birds that sing 1 the dealh of 34 of the victims. "Thank you, God, for everything ," IMany people expressed their agreemcnt .With t.he witness, ris­ ing to Lhir feet. A woman lshout.ed: "He is right! They .RRlJADS/DE. #76 killed our children!" - 4- "I first heard the sto- III~~~_ ry4 or of 5 'Gush'years agoHolston from I 'Cousin' Thelma Bolton, a fellow traveler -- in folksong -- and director of the annual Florida Folk Festival. It was on a sunny afternoon near Branford, Florida, when we were returning from a Negro school where we had sung a few of ~ Florida folk songs. It was a beautiful story. 'Gush' Holston was (is?) one of the greatest fid- dlers ever heard. His "~ L" ~ { ( t music was strange and \vU"n.- V'lO ~'tOn...... haunting.