on the passing of Mikhail Gorbachev
by Daniel Kelly 2022
Am Dm
Your father was a Russian, your mother from Ukraine,
E7 Am
You grew up in the peasant life, under Joseph Stalin’s reign,
Dm Am
Born in the years of famine, followed quickly by the Purge,
E7 E Am E7 Am E7 Am
Your grandfather told of torture, under the Marxist scourge,
E7 Am F E7 Am
You were the man, who let the wall come down,
Dm Am
Without a drop of blood, you watched it crumble to the ground,
Dm Am
A legacy of peace, born from the violent Stalin clown,
Am F E7 Am
the man who let the wall come down.
In Moscow in the fifties, you met your future wife,
A new member of the party, destined for an easy life,
As long as you kept quiet, and did what you were told,
Reporting on your comrades, whose speech was over bold.
You rose up in the party, an expert in the game,
Until in 1980, to the Politburo you came,
You took the reins of power, in nineteen eighty-five,
And quickly cleared for floor of enemies that were still alive.
The republic it unraveled, and in nineteen eighty nine,
The wall came down in Germany, the end of communisms line,
Yeltsin took the power, and drove it into the wall,
Russia headed to democracy, till Putin took the call.