I'm Oscar Brand,
welcoming you this evening to Newport,
the storm center of New England.
I'd like to sing for you
Verne Partlow's Atomic
Talking Blues,
which I learned 32nd hand.
I'm going to preach you a sermon
by an old man, Adam,
and I don't mean the Adam in the Bible,
Dr. Adam.
Don't mean the Adam that
Mother Eve made it,
but I do mean the Adam science liberated.
You know Einstein said he was scared.
Einstein says he's scared.
I get scared.
Green is not my natural complexion
Stop the world. I want to get off
Scared of the atom bomb
all you got to do is get the
people in the world
together with you
because if you don't get
Together and do it.
Well one of these days
you're gonna get shot to hell
and that is no future for
a growing boy
The moral of my sermon
I'm trying to say
is that the atom bomb is here to stay,
it's gonna stay fixed,
that's plain to see,
but all my dearly beloveds are we.
We hold these truths to
be self -evident,
all men can be cremated equal.
You know, life used to be a simple joy,
and the cyclotron a super toy.
You get born and live and
sometimes marry,
and atom was a word in the dictionary,
but it was one of them four -let
ter words
they're always talking about.
And some science boys from every clime,
they got together and
they worked for overtime.
Worked and they worked,
and when they were done with it,
harnessed up the power of
the doggone sun,
they were splitting atoms.
You could hear them in the universities,
hey mama, look, I'm splitting an atom.
The diplomats are still splitting hair.
Then the jingo boys,
they put on a show
to turn back the clock on the UNO
to get a corner on atoms,
maybe extinguish every doggone atom
that couldn't speak English.
Down with fern -born Adams,
they said,
America's for American Adams.
But the Adams International,
spite of hysteria,
flourishes in Utah and even Siberia.
And whether you're black, white,
red, or brown,
the question is the same
when you boil it down.
To be or not to be,
that is the question.
It isn't a question of military data.
who gets their fussedest
with the mustache Adams?
It's the people of the world
must decide their fate.
Stick together or disintegrate.
It's up to the people
because the atom don't care
He just flits around as free as the air
He doesn't give a darn about politics
Or who gets whom into whatever fix
All he wants to do is sit around
And have his nucleus
bombarded by neutrons
Well I've come to the end
I hope I made it clear
About what you've got
to do
and what you've got to fear
I'm finished now
Here's my thesis
Peace in the world
or the world in pieces
Thank you.