TOMORROW BELONGS TO ... ME?

Irony is difficult stuff – especially if you are really good at it – because people all to easily misunderstand.

Wikipedia defines irony as “… the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite”. In other words: Saying one thing, but meaning the opposite.

Over at Harry’s Place they are making fun of Swedish Neo Nazi folkstress Saga, because she sings the song Tomorrow Belongs To Me – from the musical Cabaret.

Making fun of Saga is always a good thing, not the least because her version of the song is unspeakably dreadful. (Though you’ve got to hand it to her: At least she sings in tune – in itself rather remarkable among Neo Nazi singers, as Prussian Blue time and again has demonstrated.)

For one thing Cabaret was an all out anti Nazi musical, and as such it is rather remarkable that Saga performs the song. For another, as Harrys’s Place enjoys pointing out, Fred Ebb, who wrote the lyrics to Cabaret, was Jewish. And gay. Not the most popular personality traits among Nazis. (So was John Kander, who wrote the music, by the way.)

The point of the song, as someone pointed out in a comment to one of many versions on YouTube, is that bad ideas don’t present themselves as bad ideas. They present themselves as – and more important: are considered by the people who hold them to be – good and noble. The Nazis were a bad lot – because their political ideas where really bad stuff. But they considered themselves brave defenders of nation, volk and family – and surrounded by enemies to on all sides.

As do Saga, Prussian Blue (or at least their mother) and most Neo Nazis of today. And they are right to consider themselves surrounded by enemies. At least we do our very best. Tomorrow do definitely not belong to them.

But the real irony of the story, I guess, is that the man who adopted Tomorrow Belongs To Me as a Neo Nazi hymn, in all probability knew exactly what he was doing. He was the skinmeister himself, Ian Stuart Donaldson of Skrewdriver, who recorded the song for their 1984 album Hail The New Dawn.

A lot can be said about Stuart Donaldson – most of it bad – but he wasn’t stupid. Recording Tomorrow Belongs To Me was an act of sheer arrogance: You may make caricatures of our beliefs, but we’ll adopt them and use them as our own. It was an act of real chutzpah, to use a very, very inappropriate term.

Some people within the Neo Nazi scene know this very well. I believe Joe Owens points it out in his autobiography. (Though I’ll be damned if I’m going to check. Reading it once was enough.) Others though, tend to speak of the song as traditional, as they do with The Green Fields Of France by Eric Bogle, another folkie tune Ian Stuart Donaldson recorded. (So does, by the way, Wikipedia's article on him. Funny that.)

There is probably some moral to this story, but I’m uncertain of what it may be. Except to beware of Nazis, even when they are singing gay Jewish tunes.

Here is the song from the movie version of Cabaret (a dubbed version, though that's hard to notice). And below that are the lyrics.




Tomorrow belongs to me

The sun on the meadow is summery warm
The stag in the forest runs free
But gathered together to greet the storm
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me

The branch on the linden is leafy and green
The Rhine gives it's gold to the sea
But somewhere a glory awaits unseen
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me

The babe in his cradle is closing his eyes
The blossom embraces the bee
But soon says a whisper, arise, arise
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me

Now Fatherland, Fatherland, show us the sign
Your children have waited to see
The morning will come when the world is mine
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me

Tomorrow belongs
Tomorrow belongs
Tomorrow belongs to me!


I don’t link to Nazis, even on YouTube. If you want to hear Saga’s version (and believe me, you don’t) search for it yourselves.
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