Chords for Death of the Bear

[Am] _ _ _ _ [Dm] _ _
[F] _ _ [G] _ [Am] _ _
The balalaika rings [Dm] silent from Minsk to Red [F] Square,
The cortege [E] assembles to bury the [Am] bear.
Nadya [Dm] Rostropovich looks on in despair,
[F] With Irina, [G] Katerina [Am] and Olga,
And quietly [Dm] remembering her brother Ivan,
[F] Shot in the back [E] in Afghanistan.
[Am] The Stalinist [Dm] purges the snowy white grave
[F] That claimed Boris, [G] [Am] Dmitry and Degol. _
[F] _ [G] _ _ [Am] _ _
She remembered how [Dm] proud she cheered with the crowd,
[F] And Yuri Gagarin [E] sailed over the clouds.
[Am] Nadya and [Dm] Ivan shouted aloud,
[F] We [G] put the first [Am] man in space.
But that was before [Dm] the feared KGB
[F] Put a question mark over [E] her own loyalty,
[Am] To keep an eye on her [Dm] comrades, one, two and three,
[F] [G] Irina, Katerina [Am] and Olga. _
[F] _ [G] _ _ [Am] _ _
And poor Uncle Vlad, [Dm] whom the duck declared mad,
[F] For refusing to leave [E] his beloved Leningrad.
[Am] She stood in the doorway, [Dm] tearful and sad,
[F] When the [G] frog marched him off [Am] to the blue lags.
He took a last look [Dm] at his own native hills,
[F] Where grew the red [E] dogwood and wild daffodils.
[Am] The look on his face [Dm] is haunting her still,
[F] [G] Comrade Nadya [Am] Rostropovich. _
_ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
[Am] _ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _
[F] _ [G] _ _ [Am] _ _ _
Sometimes alone [Dm] she'd think of the West,
[F] Ladies with opals [E] adorning their breasts,
[Am] Park Avenue posers [Dm] who behaved like the tsar,
[C] With silver [G] Coke spoons [Am] for their caviar.
She'd reflect back to when [Dm] she'd just turned ten,
[F] And faithfully subscribed to [E] fair play for all men.
[Am] But seventy-odd years [Dm] of Bolshevik dreams
[F] Had worn down her pride, [E] and left her no means
[C] To [G] cope with her own [Am] disillusions. _
[F] _ [G] _ _ [Am] _ _
If Trotsky and [Dm] Engels saw the duck-house [F] and zills,
The bullet-bull, oh boys, [E] with their hands in the till,
[Am] The bear was long dead [Dm] before he got ill.
[F] Was it the [G] cure, or was [Am] it the fever?
No more rent under beds [Dm] to freak out the [F] feds,
A defunct superpower [E] in tatters and [Am] shreds,
The marks left by Karl [Dm] leave them chewing poor bread
[F] In the [G] Caucasus, [Am] Baltics and Urals. _
_ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
[Am] _ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _
[F] _ _ [G] _ [Am] _ _ _
_ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
[Am] _ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _
[F] _ _ [G] _ [Am] _ _ _
_ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
[Am] _ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _