Happy birthday, Leonid Brezhnev

What a lovely seventy-fifth

We watched the party on TV

You seemed to be taking things casually

What a mighty heart must beat in your breast

To hold forty-nine medals on your chest

Think of all the gifts that you've got

Some were acquired and some were not

Like a natural talent for marionettes

Who do your dirty work and cover your bets

So with one hand waving free

The other one crushed a budding democracy



Congratulations, Jaruzelski

What a wonderful job you have done

Let me mention to a sane man's eye

You've lost the meaning of compromise

They're comparing you to General Pinochet

It's a dubious compliment at best

Your people are freezing, the workers are bleeding

You've already arranged numerous deaths

The only difference in the camps from the stadiums

Is not much for the doomed all cry

It's only the weather and the songs people sing

Just before they die



Do you hear us, Lech Walesa?

What a terrible price you have paid

For being ahead of your time

Has surely constituted a crime

Oh, Mr. Brezhnev, look

Somebody read the little red book

And took it all seriously

The way you did when you were young and you believed

And you workers and you black Madonna

You're not supposed to utter a word

But the courage of you and your man of the year

Is a symphony the world has seldom seen or heard

Through the Siberian gates of hell

The Pope and the bishops are wishing you well

We see your candles in the park

Hear your fearless promises in the dark

How they cheat and when tried to win

They didn't know that there would always be within you

And we hear you, Lech Walesa

Yes, we hear you, Lech Walesa

Yes, we hear you, Lech Walesa

Yes, we hear you, Lech Walesa