The Battle Cry of Garden Gnomes by Amos


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The Song Challenge: Mummy, Where Did The Funny Little Man In The Garden Go? PARIS -- The dormant Garden Gnome Liberation Front has sprung back to life, stealing about 20 gnomes during a nighttime raid on a Paris exhibition. "We demand ... that garden gnomes are no longer ridiculed and that they be released into their natural habitat," the Front's Paris wing said in a statement following its weekend strike. France's first garden gnome exhibition in the exclusive Bagatelle park on the outskirts of the capital opened last month and has been a hit with the public as chic Parisians develop a taste for kitsch culture. The Garden Gnome Liberation Front vanished from the public eye in 1997 after a northern French court handed its ringleader a suspended prison sentence and fined him for his part in the disappearance of around 150 gnomes. The only suspected sighting of the organization since then was a mass suicide of gnomes at Briey in eastern France in September 1998, when 11 of them were found dangling by their necks under a bridge. A letter found nearby said: "When you read these few words we will no longer be part of your selfish world, where we serve merely as pretty decoration." Now, the sight of 2,000 of the gaudy, colorful creatures dotted around the Bagatelle gardens has clearly proved too big a temptation for the group to avoid. It warned that it would strike again unless the show was closed and all the gnomes released. Organizers told the daily Le Parisien that they had no intention of bowing to the Front's demands.

The Battle Cry of Garden Gnomes by Amos
(Tune: Roddy McCorley) {Click to play}

Arise ye sons of stone and plaster!
For victory is at hand!
Cast off your lawns and ga-ardens!
Where the foe has made you stand!
Your shackles to unfeeling men
At last, at last, throw down!
And join the call for Freedom,
For every Garden Gnome!

What, stand ye there in apathy,
When Freedom stirs the land?
The call is heard on ev'ry side,
And still you stilly stand!
Rise up, rise up, you frozen men
Depart your prisons stone,
And dance the dance of Freedom bright,
For every Garden Gnome!

The trumpet's call has faded fast,
And freedom's light grown cold
And still you stand while all the world
Cries out for action bold!
And stand ye still, no hand to raise!
No hero fierce stands tall,
All frozen in your fear are ye,
By cruel stone enthralled.

Alack, farewell, you useless stone!
No more I shall aspire
To call you to brave liberty
With words of fight and fire,
I turn my heart to Flamingoes fair,
Poor slaves of kitschy homes,
And never more will call upon
You ugly Garden Gnomes!