28.01.2014 - 13:01
The curious song was born from a news article that Reynolds happened to see in the New York Times, according to which the military budget of Andorra in 1961 was just 300 pessetes ($4.90) and consisted solely of the purchase of blank rounds for official ceremonies.
I want to go to Andorra, Andorra, Andorra.
I want to go to Andorra, it’s a place that I adore
It’s the land that I adore
They spend four dollars and ninety cents
On armanents and their defence
Did you ever see such confidence
Andorra hip hooray
Such is the refrain for ‘I want to go to Andorra‘ (video), written in 1962 by the Californian Malvina Reynolds, and put to music and performed by Pete Seeger.
The curious song was born from a news article that Reynolds happened to see in the New York Times, according to which the military budget of Andorra in 1961 was just 300 pessetes ($4.90) and consisted solely of the purchase of blank rounds for official ceremonies. The tiny sum motivated Reynolds and Seeger to dedicate an anti-war song to the little country nestled in the Pyrenees.
Seeger, in addition to putting the lyrics to music, added the two final stanzas, in which he says he showed the news clipping to the US Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, and urged him to follow in Andorra’s steps.
Reynolds never recorded the song, but Pete Seeger did in a few albums, including ‘The Bitter and the Sweet’ in 1962 or on a record published by the Andorran Government in 2003.
