HELP SAVE THE YOUTH OF AMERICA
TALKING WITH THE TAXMAN ABOUT POETRY- 1986
WORDS and MUSIC:  Billy Bragg - 1986

Notes:

Chords:
 G                   C      G
Help save the youth of America
                        D
Help save them from themselves
G                      C      G
Help save the sunshine surfer boy
        D          G
and the California girls

Repeat Chord pattern or all other verses

When the lights go out in the rest of the World What do our cousins say They're playing in the sun and having fun fun fun Till Daddy takes the gun away From the Big CHurch to the Big River And out to the Shining Sea This is the Land of Opportunity And there's a Monkey Trial on TV A nation with their freezers full Are dancing in their seats While outside another nation Is sleeping in the streets Don't tell me the old, old story Tell me the truth this time Is the Man in the Mask or the Indian An enemy or a friend of mine

Help save the youth of America Help save the youth if the World Help save the boys in uniform Their mothers and their faithful girls Listen to the voice of the soldier Down in thekilling zone Talking about the cost of living And the price of bringing hom home They're already shipping the body bags Down below the Rio Grande But you can fight for democracy at home And not in some foreign land And the fate of the great United States Is entwined with the fate of us all And the incident at Tschernobyl proves The world we live in is very small

Last verse:

G                         C        G
The cities of Europe have burned before
                     D
And they may yet burn again
G                     C      G
And if they do I hope you understand
                     D         G
That Washington will burn with them
           D         G
Omaha will burn with them
                D         G     GGCCGCG
Los Alamos will burn with them