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If This Isn’t War

A musical answer to a bellicose question, with apologies to Yip Harburg and Burton Lane.

Calvin Trillin

April 13, 2006

(A ditty about the “possibility” of civil war in Iraq, sung to the tune of “If This Isn’t Love,” with apologies to the masters, Yip Harburg and Burton Lane)

If this isn’t war, Just how would you spin it? If this isn’t war, You haven’t been in it. Militias abound. Old neighbors are dreaded. Where you go to pray Could get you beheaded. And this isn’t war?

Calvin TrillinCalvin Trillin is The Nation’s “deadline poet.”


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