So Long, Mom - Tom Lehrer

This year we’ve been celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the civil war and

the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of world war I and the twentieth

anniversary of the end of world war ii

L in all it’s been a good year for the war buffs and a number of lps and

television specials have come out capitalizing on all this «nostalgia»

with particular emphasis on the songs of

Various wars.

I feel that if any songs are going to come out of world war iii

we’d better start writing them now.

I have one here.

you might call it a bit of

pre-nostalgia.

this is the song that

Of the boys sang as they went bravely of to world war iii.

So long, mom,

I’m off to drop the bomb,

So don’t wait up for me.

But while you swelter

Down there in your shelter,

You can see me

On your tv.

While we’re attacking frontally,

Watch brinkally and huntally,

Describing contrapuntally

The cities we have lost.

No need for you to miss a minute

Of the agonizing holocaust.

(yeah!)

Little johnny jones he was a u.s.

pilot,

And no shrinking vi’let was he.

He was mighty proud when world war three was declared,

He wasn’t scared,

No siree!

And this is what he said on

His way to armageddon:

So long, mom,

I’m off to drop the bomb,

So don’t wait up for me.

But though I may roam,

I’ll come back to my home,

Although it may be

A pile of debris.

Remember, mommy,

I’m off to get a commie,

So send me a salami,

And try to smile somehow.

I’ll look for you when the war is over,

An hour and a half from now!