Go Limp

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Framed as a dialogue between a mother and daughter, “Go Limp” ostensibly warns against the sexual consequences of a young woman’s involvement in civil rights organizing.… Read More

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Go Limp Lyrics

[Verse 1]
Oh Daughter, dear Daughter
Take warning from me
And don't you go marching
With the N-A-A-C-P
For they'll rock you and roll you
And shove you into bed
And if they steal your nuclear secret
You'll wish you were dead

[Chorus]
Singin' too roo li, too roo li, too roo li ay
Singin' too roo li, too roo li, too roo li ay

[Verse 2]
Oh Mother, dear Mother
No, I'm not afraid
For I'll go on that march
And I'll return a virgin maid
With a brick in my handbag
And a smile on my face
And barbed wire in my underwear
To shed off disgrace

[Chorus]
Singin' too roo li, too roo li, too roo li ay
Singin' too roo li, too roo li, too roo li ay

[Verse 3]
One day they were marching
A young man came by
With a beard on his cheek
And a gleam in his eye
And before she had time
To remember her brick...
They were holding a sit-down
On a nearby hay-rick

[Chorus]
Singin' too roo li, too roo li, too roo li ay
Singin' too roo li, too roo li, too roo li ay

[Verse 4]
For meeting is pleasure
And parting is pain
And if I have a great concert
Maybe I won't have to sing those folk songs again
Oh Mother, dear Mother
I'm stiff and I'm sore
From sleeping three nights
On a hard classroom floor

[Chorus]
Singin' too roo li, too roo li, too roo li ay
Singin' too roo li, too roo li, too roo li ay

[Verse 5]
One day at the briefing
She'd heard a man say
"Go perfectly limp
And be carried away"
So when this young man suggested
It was time she was kissed
She remembered her brief
And did not resist

[Chorus]
Singin' too roo li, too roo li, too roo li ay
Singin' too roo li, too roo li, too roo li ay

[Outro]
Oh Mother, dear Mother
No need for distress
For the young man has left me
His name and address
And if we win
Tho' a baby there be
He won't have to march
Like his da-da and me

About

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Limp

Framed as a dialogue between a mother and daughter, “Go Limp” ostensibly warns against the sexual consequences of a young woman’s involvement in civil rights organizing. Initially assuring her mother that she will “go on that march and return a virgin maid,” the song’s protagonist nevertheless succumbs to the advances of “a young man… with a beard on his cheek and a gleam in his eye.” Forgetting the “brick in her handbag” that she carried with her to “shed off disgrace,” the young woman instead takes a cue from her nonviolence training when her suitor “[suggests] it was time she was kissed.” She chooses not to resist, and instead she allows herself to “go limp, and be carried away.” At the end of the song, the protagonist assures her mother that “though a baby there be” (and that the father “has left his name and address”), if the civil rights movement is ultimately successful, the child “won’t have to march like his da-da and me.”