A topical song by
Tom Lehrer. Well, topical when it was recorded in 1965, anyway. It concerns the plans to tightly integrate the miltaries of
NATO- the creation of a Multilateral Force. It would have seen international crews on nuclear vessels, for example. But, in the early 1960s the world wasn't quite ready for this- for all sorts of reasons. Here are Lehrer's words and intro:
A considerable amount of commotion was stirred up during the past year over the prospect of a multilateral force, known to the headline writers as MLF. Much of this discussion took place during the baseball season, so the Chronicle may not have covered it, but it did get a certain amount of publicity; and the basic idea was that a bunch of us nations, the good guys, would get together on a joint nuclear deterrent force including our current friends, like France, and our traditional friends, like Germany. Here's a song about that, called the MLF Lullaby:
Sleep, baby, sleep, in peace may you slumber,
No danger lurks, your sleep to encumber.
We've got the missiles, peace to determine,
And one of the fingers on the button will be German.
Why shouldn't they have nuclear warheads?
England says no, but they all are soreheads.
I say a bygone should be a bygone,
Let's make peace the way we did in Stanleyville and Saigon.
Once all the Germans were warlike and mean,
But that couldn't happen again.
We taught them a lesson in 1918
And they've hardly bothered us since then.
So, sleep well, my darling, the sandman can linger.
We know our buddies won't give us the finger.
Heil - hail - the Wehrmacht, I mean the Bundeswehr,
Hail to our loyal ally!
M L F
Will scare Brezhnev.
I hope he is half as scared as I!
© Tom Lehrer; First appeared on That Was the Year That Was (1965). CST Approved. Lyrics appear with his written permission.