Lievelingsliedje

...van mezelf toen ik acht was, Toppop, vakantie bij opa, Brussel.

Kwam vanmorgen plots terug. We hoorden het op de radio op onze heenreis, naar Portu-gal, late herinnering nog. Ik hoorde dan pas voor het eerst de tekst, als kind greep me de mooie melodie, die diepe stem... 

Of voelde de ziel toen toch al wat de geest niet vatten kon?

Tell me said the elephant 

Tell me brothers if you can 

Why all the world is full of creatures 

Yet we grow in fear of man 

Tell me said the elephant 

Tell me why this has to be 

We have to run from man the hunter 

Never safe and never free 

People kill without regret 

Although they fly by jumbo-jet 

Let the world of man remember 

Let the children not forget 

Gentle is the elephant 

Pulling loads and everything 

We love to hear the children laughing 

When we're in the circus-ring 

Happy was the elephant 

Happy was his jungle life 

And then they came, the cruel hunters 

With their rifle and the knives 

Listen, please listen, said the elephant 

If we want the world we know, to stay alife 

Then man and beast, we must work together 

And together we will survive 

Listen said the elephant 

It is conservation time 

So take the warning when we trumpet 

For the future of mankind