Song | The Many and the Few |
Artist | Woody Guthrie |
Album | The Asch Recordings, Vol. 1-4 |
My name is King Cyrus, my order I give, | |
You Jews can go back to your home | |
To build your holy temple again | |
In the land of Palestine. | |
We've sung and danced o'er the hot rocky roads | |
Back to Eretz Yisroel's land | |
We worked with plow and rake and hoe | |
And we blessed the works of our hands | |
My name is Ezra the Teacher man | |
I brought my scroll book along | |
I brought my flock to Yisroel | |
From that land called Babylon | |
I'll read you my Talmud Torah book | |
And the prophet's dreams to you | |
And you'll be fertile and multiply | |
If you keep your Torah true | |
My name is Alexander the Great | |
More than half of this wide world is mine | |
Come stand around, my servants all | |
I'm wrapped on my bed here to die | |
As the King of Syria and Palestine | |
Antiochus the Fourth, you'll stand | |
To kill the Jews if they refuse | |
To worship our idols and gods | |
My name is Hannah, my first born son | |
Now stands before this king | |
Guilty of keeping the Sabbath laws | |
By the soldiers I see him slain | |
It's one by one my seven sons | |
In front of my eyes cut down | |
For keeping to the Torah laws | |
I pay with my warm blood now | |
My name is Mattathias, I've got five sons | |
In Modin City we dwell | |
They tried to make me bow down to their gods | |
Two of the King's flunkeys I killed | |
A hundred or more who'll fight to be Jews | |
Did come to these hills with me | |
On my death bed your leader I'll name | |
âTis Judah, the Macabee | |
My name is Judah, the Macabee | |
By the name of the hammer I'm called | |
We'll pray to God before every fight | |
Till all of our enemies fall | |
Appolonius, the Governor, this day I killed | |
And his army we did bust | |
Some few of his soldiers run away in the wind | |
But most we've dropped dead in the dust | |
Syron is my name, from Syria came | |
To destroy that fool Macabee | |
My army was great, his army was small | |
But he somehow did win over me | |
To deliver the many to the hands of his few | |
For God this is no trick at all | |
In a few short hours my army did break | |
And we flooded this valley with blood | |
My name is Lysias, I dreamed up a plan | |
To burn the Jews tents as they slept | |
When I got there, their tents were all bare | |
And the Macabee's army had left | |
He stormed my own camp as my soldiers did sleep | |
And he killed several thousand in fear | |
My elephants, my horsemen, my footsoldiers, all | |
Judah hammered them down from the rear | |
My name is Jerusalem where Judah came back | |
To build up my Temple once more | |
To cut down the weeds and thorny brush | |
That grows âround my windows and doors | |
Whole stones, whole stones, we'll build and pray | |
To God as a wholehearted Jew | |
God's love the hateful many did place | |
In the hands of a God loving few | |
We found in our temple a little oil jug | |
Just enough for the lamps for one night | |
That one little jug burned Eight whole days | |
And it kept our new temple in light | |
Eight candles we'll burn and a Ninth one too | |
Every New Year that comes and goes | |
We'll think of the many in the hands of the few | |
And thank God we are seeds of the Jews |
My name is King Cyrus, my order I give, | |
You Jews can go back to your home | |
To build your holy temple again | |
In the land of Palestine. | |
We' ve sung and danced o' er the hot rocky roads | |
Back to Eretz Yisroel' s land | |
We worked with plow and rake and hoe | |
And we blessed the works of our hands | |
My name is Ezra the Teacher man | |
I brought my scroll book along | |
I brought my flock to Yisroel | |
From that land called Babylon | |
I' ll read you my Talmud Torah book | |
And the prophet' s dreams to you | |
And you' ll be fertile and multiply | |
If you keep your Torah true | |
My name is Alexander the Great | |
More than half of this wide world is mine | |
Come stand around, my servants all | |
I' m wrapped on my bed here to die | |
As the King of Syria and Palestine | |
Antiochus the Fourth, you' ll stand | |
To kill the Jews if they refuse | |
To worship our idols and gods | |
My name is Hannah, my first born son | |
Now stands before this king | |
Guilty of keeping the Sabbath laws | |
By the soldiers I see him slain | |
It' s one by one my seven sons | |
In front of my eyes cut down | |
For keeping to the Torah laws | |
I pay with my warm blood now | |
My name is Mattathias, I' ve got five sons | |
In Modin City we dwell | |
They tried to make me bow down to their gods | |
Two of the King' s flunkeys I killed | |
A hundred or more who' ll fight to be Jews | |
Did come to these hills with me | |
On my death bed your leader I' ll name | |
Tis Judah, the Macabee | |
My name is Judah, the Macabee | |
By the name of the hammer I' m called | |
We' ll pray to God before every fight | |
Till all of our enemies fall | |
Appolonius, the Governor, this day I killed | |
And his army we did bust | |
Some few of his soldiers run away in the wind | |
But most we' ve dropped dead in the dust | |
Syron is my name, from Syria came | |
To destroy that fool Macabee | |
My army was great, his army was small | |
But he somehow did win over me | |
To deliver the many to the hands of his few | |
For God this is no trick at all | |
In a few short hours my army did break | |
And we flooded this valley with blood | |
My name is Lysias, I dreamed up a plan | |
To burn the Jews tents as they slept | |
When I got there, their tents were all bare | |
And the Macabee' s army had left | |
He stormed my own camp as my soldiers did sleep | |
And he killed several thousand in fear | |
My elephants, my horsemen, my footsoldiers, all | |
Judah hammered them down from the rear | |
My name is Jerusalem where Judah came back | |
To build up my Temple once more | |
To cut down the weeds and thorny brush | |
That grows round my windows and doors | |
Whole stones, whole stones, we' ll build and pray | |
To God as a wholehearted Jew | |
God' s love the hateful many did place | |
In the hands of a God loving few | |
We found in our temple a little oil jug | |
Just enough for the lamps for one night | |
That one little jug burned Eight whole days | |
And it kept our new temple in light | |
Eight candles we' ll burn and a Ninth one too | |
Every New Year that comes and goes | |
We' ll think of the many in the hands of the few | |
And thank God we are seeds of the Jews |