Brandon Moreau Poetry of Song
Song: We are Leaving Mother Russia
They call me Anatole
In prison I did lie,
My little window looked out
On a Russian sky.
For nearly nine long years
Secluded and in pain,
And all my people know
The charges were a frame.
See my accuser stranding in the hall,
He points his finger at us all.
You must now pay the penalty
For the crime of daring to be free.
We are leaving Mother Russia,
We have waited far too long.
We are leaving mother Russia,
When they come for us we’ll be gone.
For all those centuries
We called this land our home,
We loved the Russian soil
As much as anyone.
In countless armies
Our young boys have died for you,
But never did you call them “sons,”
You always called them “Jew”!
We fell in battle for the Czar
One hundred thousand died at Babi Yar,
And yet no monument
Will mark their graves
While on our passports
We read “yevrai.”
I send my song of hope
To those I left behind.
I pray that they may know
The freedom that is mine.
For in my darkest hour
Alone in my cell
I kept the vision of
My home in Israel.
My friends we know what silence brings,
Another Hitler waiting in the wings.
So stand up now and shout it to the sky.
They may bring us to our knees but we’ll never die!
After the Second World War a Jewish homeland was reestablished in the former British Colony. The song is A Russian man by the name of Anatole who was arrested upon trying to exit the country for the then new Jewish Homeland. The artist who wrote the song was a great story teller but assonance a subdivision of alliteration is a primary literary device that is present throughout the majority of the song. From the first to the last line alliteration in the form of assonance is present.
Assonance is a form of alliteration that is used to define similar vowel sounds within words on the same line in a poem or in this case a song. The first example is in the first line in which he introduces himself, “They call me Anatole” the way the song is sung the “e” in they, me and his name Anatole all sound the same. In the second line “In prison I did lay” the word “I” and the “a” in lay sound the same when sung and is therefore another example of assonance. In the third example the artist sings “You now must pay the penalty” the “a” in pay and in penalty when sung sound the same and is a third example of assonance. A fourth example of assonance can be found in the line directly after the last one when the artist sings “For the crime of daring to be free.” The “e” in the, and free are also the same vowel sound when sung and hence assonance. The next example of assonance is found in the line where the artist sung, “Our young boys have died have did for you” the “u” in the words young and you are pronounced the same and since they are vowels they are also assonance. The final example is in the last line when the lyrics “They may bring us to our knees but we will never die.” The ‘e” in they, knees, we, never and die are pronounced the same when sung for the final example of assonance in We are Leaving Mother Russia.
Now what does the story of an imprisoned Jew Anatole Shirolvnsky have to do with cultural upheaval and revolution. The answer is everything, in the immediate post World War II world there was never more upheaval before in human history. Now as for choosing to use this song to analyze for the assonance subdivision of alliteration this song was chosen for it provides a unique view into mankind’s greatest social and political upheavals aftermath in a victor country of a minority group. The fact that assonance was present throughout the song enhanced the songs quality and gave a mystifyingly re memorable experience to all who hear it, and although assonance is not the sole poetic element it is focused on as it is the most numerous.
