This is a song about some of the problems Havel faced in Czechoslovakia under the Communist state, and what he did about them.

 

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score: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

 

Songs for Vaclav Havel

 

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*A donation of $1 is suggested for each song downloaded. Donations can be sent via PayPal to truecomedy@truecomedy.org or by check payable to True Comedy Theatre Company, at 212 East 13th Street #4A, New York, NY 10003, U.S.A. These donations will be used as follows: one-third of the total donations will be used to pay the artists, one-third will go to the Dagmar and Vaclav Havel Foundation VIZE 97, and one-third will be used for the general purposes of True Comedy Theatre Company, a 501(c)3 nonprofit tax-exempt corporation incorporated in the state of New York for the purpose of producing original plays and performance artworks. Contributions are fully tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

 

What Can You Do?

 

 

 

What can you do when a superpower

sends a troop of tanks across your country's border?

No point in trying to stop the invasion.

What can you do to resist the occupation?

Wear black armbands, sing hippie anthems,

join a committee, help to write a declaration.

 

What can you do when the people in command

blacklist you and your works are banned?

Theaters can't show the plays that you create.

Other artists pack it up and emigrate.

Living in misery, working in a brewery,

write an open letter to the head of state.

 

What can you do when a court directive

busts all the members of a rock-'n'-roll collective,

jails them and charges them with criminal action?

They're not even part of a political faction.

Resolve on defiance, establish an alliance,

create a coalition for counteraction.

 

What can you do when you're put on trial?

Charged with subversion, you've refused exile.

A caricature of the legal process:

There's not even a show of fairness.

Speak in your defense, refute their phony evidence,

show that their proceeding is a travesty of justice.

 

What can you do when the judges' decision

is to sentence you to several years in federal prison?

Time is going by and to a large extent

you're not in the world, and the world's content.

Write letters to your wife, re-examining your life.

Take the hard road, you might become the president.