Andorra - a lovely little country with no military

And lots of cakes and pies

Hi all,

Thank you for joining me for today’s song, Andorra.

Comments and questions are welcome. Please be respectful of others’ opinions if they should differ from yours.

For Japanese students, vocabulary words in bold will be posted in the comments section. This will allow everyone to have the app read the passage aloud if you would like to listen. In the app, you should see a “play” button. If your phone/tablet is set to read aloud, you should be able to have the app read the article to you!

The Song

(649 words)

The song was written in 1962 by Malvina Reynolds who wrote the lyrics and Pete Seeger who wrote the music. It seems that they had both read a newspaper article that was describing how little the entire country of Andorra spent on defense as compared with that of the United States. The article led them to write this humorous song.

It is true that Andorra does not have a military. There is a police force which is under their Ministry of Justice and the Interior.

I want to go to Andorra, Andorra, Andorra

I want to go to Andorra, it's a place that I adore

They spent four dollars and ninety cents

On armaments and their defense

Did you ever hear of such confidence?

Andorra, hip hurrah!

The country of Andorra is located in the Pyrenees Mountains between the countries of France and Spain. It’s a lovely little country. I’ve been there several times. It’s very rocky. There are lots of goats and sheep. In winter, it is a great place for skiing. There is one main town, the capitol, Andorra La Vella. In the town, there are many shops filled with various kinds of cheese, butter, cakes and other sweets.

In the song, Reynolds and Seeger say that the leaders of this country are wise because they decided to invest the people’s money on the products the people can sell and not on weapons such as a Tommy gun, which was an early machine gun. They don’t buy fighter planes to fly (sweep) in the sky.

Tommy gun (phot by Stefan Kühn)

Cap pistols were popular children’s toys in the U.S. in the 1960s. They had rolls of paper caps that you put into them. When you “shoot”, a cap explodes and makes a loud sound. These toys were very popular in the 1960s.

A toy cap pistol (photo: Fun Ho! Toy Company )

Caps for a cap pistol toy (Harry20 at German Wikipedia)

A “blank” is a bullet that does not actually shoot anything from the cartridge (see photo below). The 4th of July is American Independence Day. Americans celebrate by shooting fireworks and firecrackers. Cap pistols also make loud sounds.

It’s governed by a council

All gentle souls and wise

They’ve only five dollars for armaments

And the rest for cakes and pies

They didn’t invest in a tommy gun

Or a plane to sweep the sky

But they bought some blanks for their cap pistols

To shoot on their Fourth of July

In the next verse, the singer tells a short (imagined) story of going to the Pentagon, the center of military operations in the U.S. The singer was holding the newspaper report about Andorra spending very little on defense.

I said, “I want to see everyone In McNamara’s band.” Robert McNamara was the Secretary of Defense in the 1960s. He was in charge of military spending. The singer is saying that the huge amount of spending for the U.S. defense is embarrassing, pointing out that an independent country could live very happily without spending so much money on defense.

I said, “Look what they did in Andorra, They put us all to shame, The least is first, the biggest is last, Let's get there just the same.”

However, a military general stepped in to support the defense spending. It was important to have weapons to feel safe. The singer said that there was a cheaper way to feel safe, and suggested making an appointment with a counselor or therapist (headshrinker) so that the general could lie down on the sofa (couch) and solve his problem of not feeling safe. In that way, there wouldn’t be a need for so many weapons, and the world would be much (a damn site) safer, too.

The general said, “My dear boy,

You just don't understand.

We need these things to feel secure

In our great and wealthy land.”

I said, “If security's what you need

I'll buy a couch for you

A headshrinker is cheaper and quicker

And a damn site safer too.”

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Questions:

What are your thoughts on defense spending? What amount is too much? What amount is too little? Are there other ways to defend a country besides building up a big army and having many powerful weapons?

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NOTE: The defense of Andorra is the responsibility of France and Spain.

All photos from Wikimedia Commons