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Edna & Jack
Beau
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๐ฌ๐ง English ยท Original
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Lyrics
Original
Translation
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It isn't very long ago
And yet it's still an age, you know
Remarkably she stayed alive
Old Edna in room 205
The carers, whom the record says
Knew all of Edna's little ways
Encouraged her to sing again
Her favourite song, "Lili Marlene"
They couldn't know the circumstance
Of Jack inviting her to dance
Some always said it seemed contrived
The Buck House envelope arrived
They'd put it on her mantelpiece
The warden sent his press release
But Edna hadn't really cared
A birthday tea had been prepared
She'd vaguely heard their serenade
They'd polished up her hearing aid!
She'd never been one for romance
'Til Jack invited her to dance
It was in August '42
Her brother took her to a do
And that was where she'd first seen Jack
She still remembered, looking back
He hadn't tried the usual ploys
Like all the other Brylcreem Boys
Towards the end, the maestro played
Glenn Miller's "Moonlight Serenade"
And that was when he took his chance
When Jack invited her to dance
Tomorrow was to be a day
That something big was underway
He hadn't said, but she was sure
The boys were heading for the Ruhr
When, round about the time he'd said
Those Merlins thundered overhead
She'd waved with all the little ones
And Jack had dipped his rear guns
The morning after, Edna learned
That P for Pip had not returned
Soon afterwards that autumn she
Had volunteered for SOE
Committed, bright and resolute
They'd found a talented recruit
Capable of taking charge
Excelling both in sabotage
And all of the clandestine ways
To kill, destroy and set ablaze
And so, without a backward glance
She parachuted into France
Three months in or there about
They thought it time to pull her out
But this time she'd run out of road
Some soldiers raided her abode
Then the Gestapo went to town
They beat her up and tied her down
But even now, she cheated death
The Sturmbannfรผhrer's stinking breath
A thing she chose not to recall
Or even think about at all
It was, as later they explained
The partisans that she had trained
That razed the building to the ground
And underneath it all they found
Her โ almost dead but still alive
And so it was, at twenty-five
By accident or by design
And months on the O'Leary line!
Through fortune and the merest chance
Young Edna made it home from France
'Course, that was all so long ago
And no one was supposed to know
Not even those who kindly wrote
That Buck House commendation note
Still, nothing's ever made to last
Now Edna's slipped into the past
But even in her later days
If she should hear the "Marseillaise"
It didn't make her think of France
But Jack inviting her to dance
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