David Rovics - The Key

Let me tell you about a lady known as grandma to me
She died back in 1982
She liked to tell stories of how things used to be
Just like other old ladies do
She talked about her neighbors – Muslims and Christians
Arabs, Britons and Jews
They'd come over for dinner in her house in Jaffa
And they'd talk about business and news
We got along fine A long time ago
Before everything started to change
I never imagined back in those days
I'd end up here on this firing range

There on a string around her neck, dangling in front of her heart
The key to her home, the key to her people
The key to her world – blown apart

I recall the days well – 1948
The year of the Catastrophe
With machine guns and torches they drove us away
To the land of the refugee
We all thought it would pass but the decades dragged on
And my heart turned to flame
To those who live in my home
Where is your conscience, do you feel the remorse and the shame

There on a string around her neck, dangling in front of her heart
The key to her home, the key to her people
The key to her world – blown apart

Now after two generations I and her grandchildren say
The key is theirs and mine
And all over the world we cry for Al-Awda
Home in Palestine
Maybe we will prevail but come what may
As empires fall and rise
Nothing will change the memory
Of the tears in my grandmother's eyes

There on a string around her neck, dangling in front of her heart
The key to her home, the key to her people
The key to her world – blown apart