Die gedanken sind frei, wer kann sie erraten

Sie fliehen vorbei, wie nacht liche Schatten

Kein Mensch kann sie Wisser, kein Jager ershiessen

Es bleibat dabei, die Gedanken sind Frei (Repeat)

 

Ich denke wer Ich will, und was Mich beglubet

Doch Alles inder Still, und Wie es sich Schicket

Mein Wunsch und Begehren, Kein Niemand verwehren

Es bleibat dabei-----

 

Und Sperrit Mann Mich ein, Im finstiren Kerber

Das Alles sind Rein, vergleibiche werke

Dann Meine Gedanken, zerreissen Die schranken

Es Bleibat dabei-----

 

Die Gedanken sind Frei, My thoughts freely flower

‘’       ‘’       ‘’      ‘’.     My thoughts give me power

No scholar can map them, No hunter can trap them

No Man can deny, Die Gedanken sind Frei, Repeat

 

So I think as I please, and this gives me pleasure

My conscience decrees, this right I must treasure

My thoughts will not cater, to Duke or Dictator

No man can deny, Die------, Repeat

 

And if Tyrants take me, and throw me in prison

My thoughts will burst free, Like blossoms in flower

Foundations will crumble, the structure will tumble

And free men will cry, Die----, Repeat

 

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When I was a young Man I ‘listed for a Soldier

I took the King’s Shilling, and I drank full well

They gave me a Red Coat , they gave me a musket

And sent me to Ameriky--into the jaws of Hell--Repeat

 

On line on Lexington Green, we faced the Rebels volleys

We charged our bayonets, painted that Green, Red

Then at the Bridge at Concord we faced them with one accord,

Till outnumbered fought back to Boston, with most of us dead, Repeat

 

Repeat First Verse

 

________________________________________________

 

     Kit Denton sang ‘When I was a Young Man’ when he served with the Buffs, before he became a paratrooper in WWII. He only remembereda few words of the second verse, so I ‘filled them in’, then went back to him to confirm that they were in keeping with the marching song as he remembered it.

     The tune to When I was a Young Man is ‘Die Gedanken Sind Frei’, which has been sung in Germany since the 1700’s, and is almost universally sung in Germany, there is no doubt that it would have been sung by German soldiers/Servicemen during both the First and Second World Wars--and probably by German Tornado pilots in the Gulf War. Because , ex Kit, the British Army was singing this song which obviously dates from the Amercan Revolution during WWII, that it was also sung during WWI, the Boer War, and probably the Crimea, and the Napoleonic Wars as well -- as far as I have been able to discover, it has not previously been collected even in England or America!

     The words to ‘When I was’--depict military actions that took place, accurately, in 1775; Kits unit , the Buffs, the former 3rd Regiment of Foot, didn’t arrive for service/combat, in America until 1781, so the song was obviously learned from Regiments that served there prior to that date, and thus was more widespread in the British Army than just one Regiment.

     This coming ANZAC Day, ‘98, in a few weeks time will let me confirm, or not, through Peter Walton, an Air Force veteran of Vietnam, who also served in the Wehrmacht in WWII, whether ‘Die Gedanken sind Frei’ was, in fact sung by the soldiers, ‘Michaels’, as Germans call their ‘Diggers’, during WWII. Peter has a few German soldier songs from WWII, that I have not yet recorded.