WHERE HAVE ALL THE STATESMEN GONE? (Parody of Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

Where Have All the Flowers Gone was a big hit as a protest song back in 1955 when Pete Seeger wrote it. We’ve used it with some updates to ask the question, where have all the statesmen gone.” We’ve kept the circular references which was a large part of the brilliance of the original song.

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LYRICS TO WHERE HAVE ALL THE STATESMEN GONE?
Lyrics by Don Caron – Music: Where Have All the Flowers Gone? by Pete Seeger

Where have all the statesmen gone,
those we could depend upon?
Wisdom and diplomacy
have taken their last breath.

Where have all the statesmen gone?
Now politicians every one.
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

Where do politicians go,
once they’ve served their well paid terms?
Where do they go when they move on?
They go to corporate firms.

Where do politicians go?
To corporate jobs to make more dough.
As CEOs they take their turn.
When will we ever learn?

Where do CEOs then land,
with their golden parachutes?
What is the path that they have planned,
when laying aside their fancy suits?

Where do CEOs get sent.
They’re working for the government,
providing corporate return!
When will we ever learn?

No question these are millionaires.
They earned it so it must he theirs.
And where does all this earning go,
what is the natural flow?

They look for statesmen they can buy.
But statesmen are in short supply,
so politicians have to do.
They have the same corporate view.

Where have all the statesmen gone?
Not one to grasp the passed baton
Wisdom and diplomacy
have gasped their final breath

Where have all the statesmen gone?
Drowned in money every one.
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

Copyright 2017 Parody Project

You might also enjoy this parody about the NFL fiasco, titled It’s Not About You, or if you’re looking for something optimistic we have one titled “Fifty Ways We Can Recover.”

HISTORY OF THE ORIGINAL SONG – Where Have all the Flowers Gone?
(Written by Pete Seeger)

Where Have All the Flowers Gone? was initially written by Pete Seeger in 1955. The additional verses were added in May of 1960 by Joe Hickerson, who turned it into the circular song we know today. Seeger was inspired to write the song in October of 1955 while on a flight and read a passage from his notebook that was taken from a traditional Cossack folk song called “Koloda-Duda,” which Seeger had read bout a couple of years earlier. Anyway, the folk song contained the following lines: “Where are the flowers, the girls have plucked them. Where are the girls, they’ve all taken husbands. Where are the men, they’re all in the army,” which obviously became the inspiration for “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.”

Peter Seeger, who died in 2014 was a social activist as well as a singer/songwriter. Seeger had early success as a recording artist in the 1950s when he was playing and singing with as group called the Weavers, who had several hits on the radio at that time. A notable example of that is the song”Goodnight, Irene“, which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. The 1950s were a dark time in American history for freedom of speech due to a phenomenon that came to be called “McCarthyism.” The members of the band were blacklisted during that era as suspected communists. After that settled down, Pete Seeger re-emerged in the early 60s as a powerful and prominent writer and singer of protest music addressing the issues of the counter-culture, elimination of military weapons in the world and civil rights.