The Merry Minuet Lyrics - Kingston Trio

The lyrics presented here are changed and the new version misses the point. Indeed the nature of man remains constant. Merry Minuet in the late 50;s early 60's, Blowin in the Wind in the 60's, and the purest of all, Randy Newman' Political Science,late 70's. A clever writer today would have even more ammunition.
I had the pleasure of hanging out with Bob Shane a few times and the honor of being Randy Newman's agent.
Political Science starts out, "No one likes us. Don't know why. We may not be perfect, but Heaven knows we try, But all around even our old friends put us down. Let's drop the big one - see what happens". It ends with, "They all hate us anyhow - let's drop the big one now"
Historians will realize that the fist song was under Eisenhower or Kennedy. Blowin was under Nixon or Johnson and Political Science was under Carter. What would an insightful person write today?

I seem to remember that the song went"...hate the Dutch. And I don't like anybody very much."
Also, "mushroom-shaped cloud. And we can be sure that some lovely day,Someone will set the spark off--And we will all be blown away."

I think the song was subtitled "John Foster Dulles".

Who rewrote these lyrics? Much as I admire Plan International, this is inexcusable. It changes the entire sense of the song, which was (and remains) a clever take on the state of the world.

I ask because whoever posted this has altered the last two verses to make it optimistic and has inserted a religious implication absent in the original. The original ends "there's rioting in Africa, there's strife in Iran; what nature doesn't do to us, will be done by our fellow man." You can agree or disagree with the implications ,but it's shitty to swap out the verses for something you like better, without confessing the vandalism.

I remember when my parents bought their stereo console. Came with a bunch of albums, The Best of the Kingston Trio among them. Along with The Irish Rovers, it was my favorite. I think The Merry Minuet was my favorite song even though I was 10 at the time. I had a keen awareness of the world as it was at the time, and I thought, what a perfect synopsis of what was going on back then. Everybody hated everyone else back then. Still pretty much true, sad to say.

In thinking about the Gospel lesson for this Sunday (11/14), the words to the Minuet came into my head. I first heard them back in the 60's when the Trio was in its prime, but the words have stuck with me over the years. Now I've got a delightful tool with which to kick off a sermon based on Luke 21.

i came across this song in the 80's.can't remember from whence. probably it was played on KPFA Berkeley, or KKUP Cupertino, or maybe i heard it on the streets in SF or Santa Cruz. I learned the song, used to sing it when i did coffee house gigs on guitar. now i am a cynical old lounge lizard making good money, singing mediocre versions of pop songs in german hotel bars. ( and some decent jazz and blues). i am putting this back in my repertoire. it will replace "Let it Be AND Hey Jude AND YOUR Song". no offence beatles fans but even if the Günthers love it, i cannot f''''%! stand the sound of ME singing 'em. (sound of lounge lizard choking back a hurl".)

The Merry Minuet's message is right on. I'm surprised it's rarely played. It's the first great song I heard with this message. Then came Peter, Paul & Mary's "Blowing in the Wind" and more recently, Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire". Not much has changed.

"The Merry Minuet"'s humor and catchy tune should have made it the most popular in my view.

The world has always and will always be governed by the use of force. The best we can hope for is that the winner at one particular time is not someone like Adolph or Stalin.

Well, Spain's in a lot better shape these days, but otherwise this song is as timely today as it was almost 50 years ago (it was actually written in 1959).

When politicians can make jokes about bombing Iran and ignore Darfur, it doesn't say much for progress.

fristr heard this song in the sixties ( now you'all know how old I am ) and find that this is still true. I hope we can still learn to live together as true brothers.