The offensive begins...
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peace
jazz
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antiwar
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ww1
Story behind the song
It is spring and the offensive begins with a dawn frontal assault.
The Vickers Gun team wait in the front line trench for the infantry to gain a new forward position to which they can move and mount the gun. Ron, being tall, inadvertently shows his head above the parapet and is killed by a sniper. The full horror of the war is now experienced first hand by Harry and the rest of the gun crew.
Meanwhile back in England the industrialists and workers continue to manufacture the shells and guns, the factory owners make fortunes and the workers earn higher wages with plenty of overtime.
Lyrics
Hung on the Wire
Alf:
They answered the recruiters sir in 1914
No more than country boys some barely 17
Shipped out to Flanders sir to make thier country's stand
Lived in a muddy trench and died in no-mans-land
And so the war ground on fed by flesh and bone
It ground for four more bloody years until the killing was done
The rivers they ran high with blood the fields were a bloody mire
And when the attack had failed the bodies hung on the wire
Meanwhile in Birmingham sir in Englands black country
The fat cat industrialists were making big money
Manufactured munitions sir and cast the molten steel
That would keep the war supplied and ensure there were millions killed
The women of Britain said go sir and answer the call
We'll be here in Blighty sir making shot and ball
So polish up a shell case girls make me a fuse
Careful with that gun cotton it won't take no abuse