With All the Grain of Babylon

Songfact.com : This song is about the Siege of Leningrad, a blockade that occurred from September of 1941 to January of 1944, during World War II. It is widely regarded as the deadliest siege in military history. Germany was attacking Russia, and Hitler opted to surround Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) and bombard it, rather than invade directly, having predicted that the city would "fall like a leaf." Instead, the siege lasted 900 days, and through heavy casualties Leningrad citizens continued their war and munitions industries even though they were down to a few slices of bread per adult per day. Hitler ordered bombers to drop propaganda pamphlets over the city warning them that if they did not surrender, they would starve to death. Some 632,000 citizens died of starvation and hypothermia due to being without fuel for heat. Some of these casualties included the 400,000 children who lived in the city. Mass graves and history obliterate the records; some estimate that the death toll was closer to 800,000. It is still remembered today in Russia as an event of uncommon suffering and heroics. Here is a page with a hair-raising account of the Siege of Leningrad, if you have the nerve to read more.

With all the grain of Babylon
To cultivate, to make us strong
And hidden here behind the walls
Are shoulders wide and timber on
'Til the war came

A terrible autonomy
Has grafted onto you and me
Our trust put in the government
They told their lies as heaven-sent
'Til the war came


And the war came with a curse and a caterwaul
And the war came with all the poise of a cannonball
And they're picking out our eyes by coal and candlelight
When the war came, the war came hard

We mae made our oath to Vavilov
We'd not betray the solanum
The acres of asteraceae
To our own pangs of starvation
When the war came