How do you hear a world turned upside down

Turn the world upside down

What does this expression really mean and where did it come from?

I’m assuming that it means you are just hanging upside down.

Maybe it means that your head is always hanging low and you are sad, but when you change your attitude, you’re now looking up to the sky; holding your head high.

4 Answers 4

According to The Phrase Finder the expression ‘upside down’ is one of the oldest of the English language ( first part of the 14th century). It’s meaning refers to :

The expression is common also in other languages:

It’s original form evolved to become the current intuitive one:

One of the oldest English expressions:

‘Upside down’ doesn’t sound especially old but, in its early forms, it can claim to be one of the oldest expressions in English. It joins the handful of phrases that can be dated from the first part of the 14th century or before, for example, ‘haven’t slept a wink’, ‘in the twinkling of an eye’, ‘by dint of’. The earliest version of ‘upside down’ known in print is in The proces of the seuyn [seven] sages. The precise publication date of that text isn’t known, but it is accepted as being before 1340:

I’ve also heard it used to describe someone who was very ambitious making big changes to the status quo, as in «Bob just thinks he can come in to this company and turn the world upside down!» For people who are happy with the status quo, this is considered obnoxious and unnecessary. But some people, who are not so pleased with business as usual, think it a good thing.

Making a commotion and causing disorientation are both possible effects of having the world turned upside down by a person or group’s radical actions.

It’s hard to be sure without context, but I think it means putting the world in disorder (through immoral activities)

Upside down: In or into total disorder or confusion

burglars have turned our house upside down

The expression could have originated from the Bible:

And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, [Acts, 17:6]

Young’s Literal Translation

I believe that in addition to being a popular turn-of-phrase, “turn the world upside down,” is a deep and enduring cultural meme that is demonstrably traceable back to ritual agrarian festivals—which were, themselves, a transformation of ancient hunter-gatherer rituals of ecstasy and catharsis—such as Saturnalia, Carnival, Samhain, Mardi Gras, Feast of Fools, the Season of Misrule, etc., which enacted a temporary reversal or dislocation of the social and sexual status quo.

The Season of Misrule is a descendent of Saturnalia, the Roman festival of the winter solstice. Somehow coming back around to the sunny side of our orbit suggested the inversion of social structures to the Ancient Ones. Turn the hourglass over, reach the limit and do an about-face; I suppose that’s more or less the logic, if logic has any role in this season of Unreason. see, Anna Castle

Twelfth Night (Wikipedia) a festival, in some branches of Christianity marking the coming of the Epiphany. Different traditions mark the date of Twelfth Night on either 5th January or 6th January; the Church of England, Mother Church of the Anglican Communion, celebrates Twelfth Night on the 5th and «refers to the night before Epiphany, the day when the nativity story tells us that the three wise men visited the infant Jesus.»

In medieval and Tudor England, the Twelfth Night marked the end of a winter festival that started on All Hallows Eve — now more commonly known as Halloween. The Lord of Misrule symbolizes the world turning upside down. On this day the King and all those who were high would become the peasants and vice versa. At the beginning of the Twelfth Night festival, a cake that contained a bean was eaten. The person who found the bean would rule the feast. Midnight signaled the end of his rule and the world would return to normal. The common theme was that the normal order of things was reversed. This Lord of Misrule tradition dates back to pre-Christian European festivals such as the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia. see, Wikipedia

Saturnalia was an ancient Roman festival in honor of the deity Saturn, held on 17 December of the Julian calendar and later expanded with festivities through to 23 December. The holiday was celebrated with a sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn, in the Roman Forum, and a public banquet, followed by private gift-giving, continual partying, and a carnival atmosphere that overturned Roman social norms: gambling was permitted, and masters provided table service for their slaves. The poet Catullus called it «the best of days.»

In Roman mythology, Saturn was an agricultural deity who was said to have reigned over the world in the Golden Age, when humans enjoyed the spontaneous bounty of the earth without labor in a state of innocence. The revelries of Saturnalia were supposed to reflect the conditions of the lost mythical age, not all of them desirable. The Greek equivalent was the Kronia.

The popularity of Saturnalia continued into the third and fourth centuries AD, and as the Roman Empire came under Christian rule, some of its customs have influenced the seasonal celebrations surrounding Christmas and the New Year. see, Wikipedia [emphasis added].

How do you hear a world turned upside down

To all apparent Beauties blind
Each Blemish strikes an envious Mind.

«If ponies rode men and grass ate the cows»
Just What Tune was in the Air when
The World Turned Upside Down?
by Dennis Montgomery

Virginia-born and reared, Dennis Montgomery is descended from a 1670s Shenandoah Valley clan, and now lives and writes in a James River hamlet deep in the rural Tidewater.

A University of Memphis graduate, he spent a two decade career with The Associated Press. His professional progress was interrupted only by a National Endowment for the Humanities journalism fellowship at the University of Michigan.

He left the AP to begin research for Starving Time, a manuscript on Jamestown anthrophagia; edited a country weekly and a small-town daily; and became Colonial Williamsburg’s senior staff writer. Now working for himself, he writes video scripts, magazine pieces, website copy, and promotional items for Colonial Williamsburg, guest edits «Colonial Williamsburg, the Journal of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation,» and contributes stories to a handful of business publications.

Montgomery has published the biography of Colonial Williamsburg’s founder, «A Link Among the Days: The Life and Times of the Rev. Dr. W. A. R. Goodwin.» Currently, he is at work on a history of Lancaster County, Virginia, a children’s book about Jamestown colonist Henry Spelman, a biography of St. George Tucker, and other Virginia-history projects.

The father of five daughters, he is married to Joyce Savedge Dunlop, a descendant of a 1608 Jamestown settler, as well as the 18th-century Surry County tobacco factor and Loyalist, Archibald Dunlop.

Dennis extends thanks to Mike Litterst at the Yorktown office of the Colonial National Historical Park for his help with this story.

Mr. Montgomery may be contacted by clicking on his name above.

«No one knows for sure» is probably not what the teachers or textbooks taught you in American History 101. Almost certainly not what you learned in grammar school, either.

On the academic hit parade of patriotic music «The World Turned Upside Down» is up there in the top ten with the «Star Spangled Banner» and the «Battle Hymn of the Republic.» It’s so apropos for the historical event; the world’s most potent military power is trounced by a bunch of farmers, shopkeepers and overdressed Frenchmen in a battle that all but ends the Revolutionary War. A few bars of «The World Turned Upside Down» are perfect for the occasion. Maybe too perfect.

There is no reliable evidence the British played a «The World Turned Upside Down» song that October 19th, and if someday someone somehow discovers proof they did, we aren’t likely to know which of «The World Turned Upside Down» songs it was.

Well, let me tell you.

«The World Turned Upside Down» tradition, which may be all that it is, begins with another capitulation-Charleston, South Carolina’s on May 13, 1780. It is root and branch of the unconditional-surrender terms the victorious British general, Sir Henry Clinton, imposed on the losing American commander, General Benjamin Lincoln of Massachusetts.

Eighteenth-century customs of war usually did the vanquished the honor of allowing him to march out of his lines to lay down his arms with his flags flying and his band playing a march from the victor’s national book of martial melodies. But Clinton dishonored Lincoln by requiring the Americans to keep their colors cased and forbidding them to play an English or German air.

Remember Lincoln’s name because he’s going to show up center stage at Yorktown.
Fast forward to October 17, 1781 and the earthworks, trenches, and redoubts from which the Americans and French bombarded the British and Germans in Virginia. That morning Ensign Ebenezer Denny of Connecticut:

The blindfolded Englishman carried a memorandum from Cornwallis to Washington. It read, «I propose a cessation of hostilities for 24 hours, and that two officers may be appointed by each side, to meet at Mr. Moore’s house, to settle the terms for the surrender of York and Gloucester.» Gloucester was the British stronghold on the north shore of York River, opposite Yorktown.

Washington permitted Cornwallis two hours to reduce his proposals to writing, and, among other things, said: «The same Honors will be granted to the Surrendering Army as were granted to the Garrison of Charles Town.» Benjamin Lincoln, by the way, was now Washington’s second in command.

Dickering, the belligerents agreed to send commissioners the next morning to Augustine Moore’s two-story clapboard just east of the line of fire to commit the terms to paper. Probably in the first-floor parlor, to your right or east as you enter the riverside door, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Dundas and Major Alexander Ross, representing Cornwallis, negotiated the details with Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens, representing the Americans, and Viscount de Noailles, representing America’s ally, the French, commanded by the Count de Rochambeau.

Dundas and Ross belabored every provision. The negotiations, which Washington expected to be concluded by noon-how much was there to talk about- consumed the day. In its course, Ross told Laurens, who had been with Lincoln at Charleston, that a passage in Article Three was harsh. It read: «The garrison of York will march out to a place to be appointed in front of his posts, at two o’clock precisely, with shouldered arms, colors cased, and drums beating a British or German march.»

«Yes, sir,» Laurens said, «it is a harsh article.» Ross said Clinton, not Cornwallis, was responsible for the Charleston affront, and suggested Article Three’s comeuppance missed its mark. Laurens said, «This remains an article or I cease to be a commissioner.»
While three armies waited for the four-man palaver to conclude, Denny wrote:

So, but for the discourteous Clinton, the British might have tooted revolutionary America’s de facto anthem, and, 218 years later, Yorktown historians would not be playing «Name That Tune.»

Denny says nothing of what the drummers beat, nor, as he had the day before, did he describe the sound as music. Nor did he mention a British band. Nor did anyone else.

An American surgeon, Dr. James Thacher, described «the conquered troops in a slow and solemn step with shouldered arms, colors cased, and drums beating a British march.» Lieutenant Colonel «Light-horse» Harry Lee, confided to his memoirs: «At two o’clock in the evening the British army, led by General [Charles] O’Hara, marched out of its lines with colors cased, and drums beating a British march.» No band, no «The World Turned Upside Down,» just drums playing a march Lee and Thacher recognized as British.

Johann Conrad Doehla, a German soldier, wrote that fifes played. Fifing was so common to such marches that other men who wrote of the surrender may have deemed its mention superfluous. On the other hand, just one of them neglected to point out the just-as-ordinary drums. In any case, Doehla names no tune.

No description written at the time by someone there has come to light that names any melody the British drummed, fifed, played, or hummed to themselves.

John B. Mitchell, now a Colonial Williamsburg interpreter and once a National Park Service historian at Yorktown, studied «The World Turned Upside Down» question, and produced a monograph on his findings in 1961. He said: «No positive information exists regarding this particular tune being played at Yorktown.»

Moreover, he wrote, «None of the contemporary accounts mentions a band serving with the defeated army, nor are there any band instruments listed among the spoils of war.» Mitchell, however, found 79 musicians on the prisoner-of-war rolls-men who played bugle-like trumpets and clarinet-like hautbois, both ill-suited for carrying alone or together the tune of any version of «The World Turned Upside Down.» He thought the 79 might represent the nuclei of eight otherwise-unnoted, but usually standard ten-man regimental bands fleshed out with more flexible valved horns and bassoons.

It was uncommon among British regiments to have official bands, but common for them to have bands-official being the operative word. They hired civilian musicians for accompaniment, men who seem to have come with their own instruments. The regiments showed recruits on their rosters as regular soldiers. Fifers and drummers-the British turned over at least 137 fifes and drums-were so listed in the rank-and-file at Yorktown. The articles of capitulation allowed defeated soldiers to retain private property, which could explain the absence of other instruments in the spoils.

American and French bands attended the surrender. No question. If they played, however, their songs are not noted either. So to speak. But no one has accused the allied music men of mocking the vanquished with «The World Turned Upside Down.» Accounts of the Franco-American forces’ behavior say, without mentioning bands specifically, that they were silent.

Whoever played what, when, on which instruments, there was time for more tunes than one. About 3,500 soldiers-all of the 7,247 British and Germans in the official returns healthy enough for duty-paraded out of Yorktown to stack their arms that afternoon. They crossed the 200 or so yards of shot-plowed ground between their works and the one where Washington waited-near today’s national cemetery on the old road to Hampton. It’s about a mile and a half from there to the surrender field where they piled their muskets before filing back to the city. So large a procession, covering four miles or more round-trip, took longer than a song.

Among those who watched the British pass was Aedanus Burke. He wrote that day to Arthur Middleton of songs in the plural:

Several popular tunes that the British, Americans, and French would be expected to know contained the lyric «the world turned upside down,» though they were not so titled. At least one so titled did not contain the words. Burke didn’t say whether he heard any of them, and we can’t either.

You remember Lincoln.

Colonel Fontaine of the Virginia Militia, writing a week after the event, said:

A second source is Yorktown soldier Asa Redington who said near the end of his 83 years: «The British bands played that old tune about the world being turned upside down.» By then, however, Garden’s report was widespread and potent enough to influence aging memories, the fitness of the tune for the moment in time having become popularly apparent.

A National Park Service information sheet provided to Yorktown visitors today says, «At no time during the 1700s was there a song entitled ‘The World Turned Upside Down.'» But there is more to that pronouncement than meets the ear.

Mitchell and others report that by 1632 the English sang a song named «Marry Me, Marry Me, Quoth the Bonny Lass,» with a melody so agreeable it often was refitted with lyrics for more recent occasions. In 1646, for example, the tune acquired the words of a song titled «The World Is Turned Upside Down.»

That song protested against what the writer feared would be the deleterious impact of Protestant Oliver Cromwell’s victory at the Battle of Naseby in 1645 on the traditional observances and merrymaking of the English Catholic Christmas. The first verse went:

Listen to me and you shall hear,
News hath not been this thousand year:
Since Heros, Caesar, and many more,
You never heard the like before.
Holy-days are despis’d,
New fashions are devis’d.
Old Christmas is kickt out of Town.
Yet let’s be content, and the times lament,
You see the world turn’d upside down.

A year later, songwriter Martin Parker re-appropriated the melody for the song «When the King Enjoys his Own Again.» For a century and a half, the tune of «When the King Enjoys his Own Again» was so popular as «This Land is Your Land» is in today’s United States. Mitchell found that «since it was performed in honor of nearly every possible occasion of national significance, the lyrics often required changing. The song was heard under titles like ‘A Review of the Rebellion, Monarchy Triumph,’ ‘Since Hanover has Come,’ and ‘The Last News from France.'»

From here on, no one who has looked into the subject and shared the upshot in print owns up to anything more informed than conjecture. Some think that the British may have played «When the King Enjoys his Own Again» in return for the insult of the Article Three in the surrender document. Mitchell is one. The verses of «When the King Enjoys his Own Again» went:

What Booker can prognosticate
Concerning Kings or Kingdoms fate
I think myself to be as wise
As him that gameth on the skies
My skill goes beyond the depths of a pond
Or river in the greatest rain
Whereby I tell all things will be well
When the King enjoys his own again

There’s neither swallow, Dove or Dade
Can soar more high or deeper wade
Nor show a reason from the stars
What causeth peace or civil wars
The Man in the Moon may wear out his shoon
By running after Charles his wain
But all to no end for the times will not mend
Till the King enjoys his own again

Till then upon Ararat’s hill
My hope shall cast her anchor still
Until I see some peaceful dove
Bring home the branch I dearly love
There I will wait till the waters abate
Which now disturb my troubled brain
Else never rejoice till I hear the voice
That the King enjoys his own again

It works for Yorktown, if not spectacularly, but the words «the world turned upside down» are nowhere to be found.

James Maclay, a United States senator from Pennsylvania, employed the words in the legislative journal he kept from 1789 to 1791. When Baron von Steuben applied to Congress for his back pay as one of Washington’s generals, Maclay wrote: «The baron’s bill, as it was called, was taken up. Perversion of reason, perversion of principle. The world turned upside down only could justify the determinations.» The baron was paid in worthless paper notes, but Maclay demonstrated the phrase’s undiluted currency.

The bridges between 18th-century speech, literature, and popular music are not far to seek. If it had not by then, the phrase has since achieved the distinction of a bromide in the three arenas, notably among Australians. An Internet search with a mother-hubbard engine produced 5,250 matches. Among them is a page on a website run by by Lesley Nelson, to which John Renfro Davis contributed http://www.contemplator.com/england/worldtur.html
There you can hear a recording of one 18th-century «The World Turned Upside Down» and read the lyrics of two.

One of Davis’s versions appeared on the pages of London’s Gentleman’s Magazine in 1766 during the Stamp Act crisis, under the title «The Old Woman Taught Wisdom, or the World Turned Upside Down.» Scholars Henry Steele Commager and Robert B. Morris give the title phrases in reverse. But they observe the song was «quite a different version from the earlier English ballad of the same title»-the one set in 1646 to what became «When the King Enjoys his Own Again.»

Goody Bull and her daughter together fell out,
Both squabbled and wrangled and made a great rout.
But the cause of the quarrel remains to be told,
Then lend both your ears and a tale I’ll unfold.
Derry down, down, hey derry down,
Then lend both your ears and a tale I’ll unfold.

The old lady, it seems, took a freak in her head,
That her daughter, grown woman, might earn her own bread,
Self-applauding her scheme, she was ready to dance,
But we’re often too sanguine in what we advance.
Derry down, down, hey derry down,
But we’re often too sanguine in what we advance.

For mark the event, thus for fortune we’re cross,
Nor should people reckon without their good host,
The daughter was sulky and wouldn’t come to,
And pray what in this case could the old woman do?
Derry down, down, hey derry down,
And pray what in this case could the old woman do?

Zounds, neighbor, quoth Pitt, what the devil’s the matter?
A man cannot rest in his home for your clatter
Alas, cries the daughter, Here’s dainty fine work,
The old woman grows harder than Jew or than Turk
Derry down, down, hey derry down,
The old woman grows harder than Jew or than Turk.

She be damned, says the farmer, and to her he goes
First roars in her ears, then tweaks her old nose,
Hello Goody, what ails you? Wake woman, I say,
I am come to make peace in this desperate fray.
Derry down, down, hey derry down,
I am come to make peace in this desperate fray.

Alas, cries the old woman, And must I comply?
I’d rather submit than the hussy should die.
Pooh, prithee, be quiet, be friends and agree,
You must surely be right if you’re guided by me,
Derry down, down, hey derry down,
You must surely be right if you’re guided by me.

«But this song,» Mitchell wrote, «was said to have been played by the musicians of the British Sixty-fourth Foot on their retreat from Salem Bridge, February 26, 1776. If it could be proved that this particular song was featured at the Salem Bridge action, it could then be said that it was a tune familiar to British army musicians and therefore possibly played at Yorktown.» Possibly it was played more slowly at Yorktown.

Possibly. But all the possibilities beg an obvious question. Every version of «The World Turned Upside Down» nominated for Yorktown honors was set to a borrowed melody. There is no suggestion the British sang the verses of the song tradition would have them play. So how would the audience know whether the musicians intended, say, the old original «Derry Down» or the newfangled «The Old Woman Taught Wisdom,» or «The World Turned Upside Down?» Likewise «When the King Enjoys his Own Again.» Wouldn’t the tunes sound pretty much the same no matter which lyrics with which they were outfitted-or the bandsman had in mind?

There is another 18th-century adaptation of «Derry Down» with a clear claim to «The World Turned Upside Down» candidacy. It is still in six/eight time, but on the fitness of its lyrics for the Yorktown surrender, if for no better reason, it seems to be the sentimental favorite for what the British might have played. It goes:

If buttercups buzz’d after the bee
If boats were on land, churches on sea
If ponies rode men and if grass ate the cows
And cats should be chased into holes by the mouse
If the mamas sold their babies
To the Gypsies for half a crown
If summer were spring
And the other way ’round
Then all the world would be upside down!

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C. H. Spurgeon :: The World Turned Upside Down

A Sermon
(No. 193)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, May 9, 1858, by
the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

«These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.»- Act 17:6

THIS IS JUST an old version of an oft-repeated story. When disturbances arise in a state, and rebellions and mutinies cause blood to be shed, it is still the custom to cry, «The Christians have done this.» In the days of Jesus we know that it was laid to the charge of our blessed and divine Master, that he was a stirrer of sedition, whereas he himself had refused to be a king, when his followers would have taken him by force to make him one, for he said, «My kingdom is not of this world;» yet was he crucified under the two false charges of sedition and blasphemy. The same thing occurred with the Apostles. Wherever they went to preach the gospel, the Jews who opposed them sought to stir up the refuse of the city to put an end to their ministry; and then, when a great tumult had been made by the Jews themselves, who had taken unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city in an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring him out to the people, then the Jews laid the tumult and the uproar at the door of the Apostles, saying, «These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.» This plan was followed all through the Roman empire, until Christianity became the state religion. There was never a calamity befel Rome, never a war arose, never a famine or a plague, but the vulgar multitude cried, «The Christians to the lions! The Christians have done this.» Nero himself imputed the burning of Rome, of which he himself doubtless was the incendiary, to the Christians. The believers in Jesus were slandered as if they were the common sewer, into which all the filth of sin was to be poured; whereas, they were like Solomon’s great brazen sea, which was full of the purest water, wherein even priests themselves might wash their robes. And you will remark that to this day the world still lays its ills at the door of the Christians. Was it not the foolish cry a few months ago, and are there not some weak-minded individuals who still believe it, that the great massacre and mutiny in India was caused by the missionaries. Forsooth; the men who turned the world upside down had gone there also; and because men broke through all the restraints of nature and of law, and committed deeds for which fiends might blush, this must be laid at the door of Christ’s holy gospel, and the men of peace must bear on their shoulders the blame of war! Ah! we need not refute this: the calumny is too idle to need a refutation. Can it be true, that he whose gospel is love should be the fomenter of disturbance? Can it be fair for a moment to lay mutiny and rebellion at the door of the gospel, the very motto of which is, «Peace on earth, good will towards men?» Did not our Master say, «Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s?» Did he not himself pay tribute though he sent to the fish of the sea, to get the shekel? And have not his followers at all times been a peaceful generation?-save only and except where the liberty of their conscience was touched, and then they were not the men to bow their knees to tyrants and kings, but with brave old Oliver they did bind their kings in chains, and their nobles in fetters of iron, as they will do again, if their liberty ever should be infringed, so that they should not have power to worship God as they ought.

We believe that what these Jews said of the Apostles, was just a downright wilful lie. They knew better. The Apostles were not the disturbers of states. It is true, they preached that which would disturb the sinful constitution of a kingdom and which would disturb the evil practices of false priests, but they never meant to set men in an uproar. They did come to set men at arms with sin; they did draw the sword against iniquity; but against men as men, against kings as kings, they had no battle; it is with iniquity and sin, and wrong everywhere, that they proclaimed an everlasting warfare. But still, brethren, there is many a true word spoken in jest, we say, and surely there is many a true word spoken in malice. They said the Apostles turned the world upside down. They meant by that, that they were disturbers of the peace. But they said a great true thing; for Christ’s gospel does turn the world upside down. It was the wrong way upwards before, and now that the gospel is preached, and when it shall prevail, it will just set the world right by turning it upside down.

And now I shall try to show how, in the world at large, Christ’s gospel turns the world upside down. and then I shall endeavor, as well as God shall help me, to show how the little world that is within every man is turned upside down, when he becomes a believer in the gospel of Christ.

I. First, then, the gospel of Christ turns the world upside down, WITH REGARD TO THE POSITION OF DIFFERENT CLASSES OF MEN.

In the esteem of men, the kingdom of heaven is something like this. High there on the summit, there sits the most grand rabbi, the right venerable, estimable and excellent doctor of divinity, the great philosopher, the highly learned, the deeply instructed, the immensely intellectual man. He sits on the apex: he is the highest, because he is the wisest. And just below him there is a class of men who are deeply studied-not quite so skilled as the former, but still exceeding wise,-who look down at those who stand at the basement of the pyramid, and who say to them, «Ah, they are the ignoble multitude, they know nothing at all.» A little lower down, we come to the sober, respectable, thinking men, not those who set up for teachers, but those who seldom will be taught, because they already in their own opinion know all that is to be learned. Then after them there come a still larger number of very estimable folks, who are exceeding wise in worldly wisdom, although not quite so exalted as the philosopher and the rabbi. Lower still come those who have just a respectable amount of wisdom and knowledge, and then at the very basement there come the fool, and the little child, and the babe. When we look at these we say, «This is the wisdom of this world. Behold how great a difference there is between the babe at the bottom, and the learned doctor on the summit! How wide the distinction between the ignorant simpleton who forms the hard, rocky, stubborn basement, and the wise man of polished marble, who there stands resplendent at the apex of the pyramid.» Now, just see how Christ turns the world upside down. There it stands. He just reverses it. «Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye can in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.» «Not many great men after the flesh, not many mighty men are chosen; but God hath chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, heirs of the kingdom.» It is just turning the whole social fabric upside down; and the wise man finds now that he has to go upstairs towards his simplicity. He has been all his life trying as far as he could, to get away from the simplicity of the credulous child, he has been thinking, and judging, and weighing, and bringing his logic to cut up every truth he heard, and now he has to begin, and go up again: he has to become a little child, and turn back to his former simplicity. This is the world turned upside down, with a vengeance; and therefore the wise seldom love it.

If you wish to see the world turned upside down to perfection, just turn to the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew: here you have a whole summary of the world reversed. Jesus Christ turned the world upside down the first sermon he preached. Look at the third verse. «Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.» Now, we like a man who has an ambitious spirit-a man who, as we say, knows how to push his way in the world-who looks up-is not contented with the position that he occupies, but is always for climbing higher and higher. And we have a very fair opinion too of a man, who has a very fair opinion of himself-a man who is not going to bow and cringe. He will have his rights, that he will, he will not give way to anybody. He believes himself to be somewhat, and he will stand on his own belief, and will prove it to the world yet. He is not one of your poor, mean-spirited fellows, who are content with poverty, and sit still. He will not be contented. Now such a man as this the world admires. But Christ just turns that upside down, and says, «Blessed are the poor in spirit, for their’s is the kingdom of heaven.» The men who have no strength of their own, but look for all to Christ-the men who have no spirit to run with a wicked world, but who would rather suffer an injury than resent one-the men who are lowly and of a humble carriage, who seek not to lift their heads above their fellows; who if they be great have greatness thrust upon them, but never seek it-who are content along the cool, sequestered vale of life, to keep the even tenour of their way-who seem to have always ringing in their ears, «Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not»-«the poor in spirit,» happy in their poverty, who are content with the Lord’s providence, and think themselves far more rich than they deserve to be. Now, these men Christ says, are blessed. The world says, they are soft, they are fools; but Christ puts those on the top whom the world puts at the bottom. «Blessed are the poor in spirit for their’s is the kingdom of heaven.»

Then there is another lot of people in the world; they are always mourning. They do not let you see it often, for their Master has told them when they fast, to anoint their face, that they appear not unto men to fast, but still secretly before God they have to groan; they hang their harps upon the willows; they mourn for their own sin, and then they mourn for the sin of the times. The world says of these, «They are a moping, melancholy set; I would not care to belong to their number;» and the gay reveller comes in, and he almost spits upon them in his scorn. For what are they? They love the darkness. They are the willows of the stream, but this man, like the proud poplar, lifts his head, and is swayed to and fro in the wind of his joy, boasting of his greatness, and his freedom. Hear how the gay youth talks to his mourning friend, who is under conviction of sin. «Ah! yours is a morbid disposition; I pity you; you ought to be under the hand of a physician. You go mourning through this world. What a miserable thing, to be plunging through waves of tribulation! What a dismal case is yours! I would not stand in your shoes and be in your position for all the world.» No, but Christ turns the world upside down; and so those people whom you think to be mournful and sorrowful, are the very ones who are to rejoice. For read the fourth verse, «Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted.» Yes, worldling, your joy is like the crackling of thorns under a pot. It blazeth a little, and maketh a great noise: it is soon done with. But «light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.» You cannot see the light now, because it is sown. It lies under the clods of poverty, and shame, and persecution, mayhap. But when the great harvest day shall come, the blades of light, upstarting at the second coming, shall bring forth «the full corn in the ear» of bliss and glory everlasting. O ye mourning souls, be glad; for whereas the world puts you beneath it, Christ puts you above the world’s head. When he turns the world upside down, he says you shall be comforted.

Then there is another race of people, called «the meek.» You may have met with them now and then. Let me describe the opposite. I know a man who never feels happy unless he has a law-suit; he would never pay a bill unless be had a writ about it. He is fond of law. The idea of pulling another up before the court is a great delicacy to him. A slight affront he would not easily forget. He has a very large amount of meek dignity; and if he be never so slightly touched, if a harsh word be spoken against him, or one slander uttered he is down upon his enemy at once; for he is a man of a hard temper, and he casts the debtor into prison, and verily I say unto thee, if thou gettest in there by his writ, thou shalt never come out until thou hast paid the uttermost farthing. Now the meek are of a very different disposition. You may revile them, but they will not revile again; you may injure them, but they know that their Master has said, «I say unto thee, resist not evil.» They do not put themselves into airs and passions on a slight affront, for they know that all men are imperfect, and therefore they think that perhaps their brother made a mistake, and did not wish to hurt their feelings, and therefore they say, «Well, if he did not wish to do it, then I will not be hurt by it, I dare say he meant well, and therefore I will take the will for the deed, and though he spoke harshly, yet he will be sorry for it to morrow; I will not mention it to him,-I will put up with whatever he chooses to say.» There is a slander uttered against him: he says, «Well, let it alone; it will die of itself; where no wood is, the fire goeth out.» Another speaketh exceeding ill against him in his hearing; but he justs holds his tongue; he is dumb and openeth not his mouth. He is not like the sons of Zeruiah, who said to David, «Let us go and take off that dead dog’s head, because he cursed the king» He says, «No, if the Lord hath bidden him curse; let him curse.» «Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.» He is quite content to bear and forbear, and put up with a thousand injuries, rather than inflict one; meekly and quietly he goes his way through the world, and people say, «Ah! such a man as that will never get on; he will always be taken in. Why, he will be lending money, and will never get it back again; he will be giving his substance to the poor, and he will never receive it. How stupid he is! He allows people to infringe on his rights; he has no strength of mind; he does not know how to stand up for himself, fool that he is.» Ay, but Christ turns it upside down, and he says, «Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.» Is not that provoking to you graspers, you high spirited people, you lawyers, you that are always trying to bring your neighbor into trouble touching your rights? you do it in order that you may inherit the earth: see how Christ spites you, and treads your wisdom under feet. He says, «The meek shall inherit the earth.» After all, very often, the best way to get our rights is to let them alone. I am quite certain that the safest way to defend your character is never to say a word about it. If every person in this place chooses to slander me and utter the most furious libels that he pleases, he may rest quite assured he will never have a law-suit from me. I am not quite fool enough for that. I have always noticed that when a man defends himself in a court of law against any slander, he just does his enemy’s business with his own hand. Our enemies cannot hurt us, unless we hurt ourselves. No man’s character was ever really injured except by himself. Be you among the meek, and you shall inherit the earth. Bear all things, hope all things, believe all things, and it shall be the best, even on this earth, in the end.

Do you see that very respectable gentleman yonder, who has never omitted to attend his church or his chapel twice every Sunday ever since he became a man. He reads his Bible too, and he has family prayers. It is true that there are certain stories flying about, that he is rather hard upon his laborers, and exacting at times in his payments, but does justice to all men, although no further will he go. This man is on very good terms with himself; when he gets up in the morning he always shakes hands with himself, and compliments himself on being a very excellent person. He generally lives in a front street, in his opinion, and the first number in the street, too. If you speak to him about his state before God, he says, that if he does not go to heaven nobody will; for he pays twenty shillings in the pound to everybody; he is strictly upright, and there is no one who can find any fault with his character. Isn’t he a good man? Don’t you envy him?-a man who has so excellent an opinion of himself that he thinks himself perfect; or if he is not quite perfect, yet he is so good that he believes that with a little help, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Well, now, do you see standing at the back of the church there, a poor woman with tears running down her eyes? Come forward, ma’am; let us hear your history. She is afraid to come forward; she dares not speak in the presence of respectable persons; but we gather thus much from her: She has lately found out that she is full of sin, and she desires to know what she must do to be saved. Ask her. She tells you she has no merits of her own. Her song is, «I the chief of sinners am. Oh! that mercy would save me!» She never compliments herself upon her good works, for she says she has none; all her righteousnesses are as filthy rags; she puts her mouth in the very dust when she prays, and she dares not lift so much as her eyes towards heaven. You pity that poor woman. You would not like to be in her case. The other man whom I have just mentioned, stands at the very top of the ladder, does he not? But this poor woman stands at the bottom. Now just see the gospel process-the world turned upside down. «Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled;» while the man who is content with himself has this for his portion-«As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse;» publicans and harlots enter into the kingdom of heaven before you, because you seek not the righteousness which is of faith, but you seek it as it were by the works of the law. So here you see again is the world turned upside down in the first sermon Christ ever preached.

Now turn to the next beatitude-in the seventh verse-«Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.» Of this I have already spoken. The merciful are not much respected in this world-at least if they are imprudently merciful, the man who forgives too much, or who is too generous, is not considered to be wise. But Christ declares that he who has been merciful-merciful to supply the wants of the poor, merciful to forgive his enemies and to pass by offenses, shall obtain mercy. Here, again, is the world turned upside down.

«Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.» The world says, «Blessed is the man who indulges in a gay life.» If you ask the common run of mankind who is the happy man, they will tell you, «The happy man is he who has abundance of money, and spends it freely, and is freed from restraint-who leads a merry dance of life, who drinks deep of the cup of intoxication-who revels riotously-who, like the wild horse of the prairie, is not bitted by order, or restrained by reason, but who dashes across the broad plains of sin, unharnessed, unguided, unrestrained.» This is the man whom the world calls happy: the proud man, the mighty man, the Nimrod; the man who can do just as he wishes, and who spurns to keep the narrow way of holiness. Now, the Scripture says, Not so; «Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.»

«Blest is the man who shuns the place
Where sinners love to meet;
Who fears to tread their wicked ways,
And hates the scoffer’s seat,»-

the man who cannot touch one thing because that would be lascivious, nor another because that would spoil his communion with his Master; a man who cannot frequent this place of amusement, because he could not pray there, and cannot go to another, because he could not hope to have his Master’s sanction upon an hour so spent. That man, pure in heart, is said to be a Puritanical moralist, a strict Sabbatarian, a man who has not any mind of his own; but Jesus Christ puts all straight, for he says, these are the blessed men these are the happy ones. «Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.»

And now look at the ninth verse. What a turning of the world upside down that is! You walk through London, and who are the men that we put upon our columns and pillars, and upon our park gates, and so on? Read the ninth verse, and see how that turns the world upside down. There upon the very top of the world, high, high up, can be seen the armless sleeve of a Nelson: there he stands, high exalted above his fellows; and there, in another place, with a long file up his back, stands a duke; and in another place, riding upon a war horse, is a mighty man of war. These are the world’s blest heroes. Go into the capital of what empire you choose to select, and you shall see that the blessed men, who are put upon pedestals, and who have statues erected to their memory, who are put into our St. Paul’s Cathedral, and our Westminster Abbey, are not exactly the men mentioned in the ninth verse. Let us read it. «Blessed are the peace-makers; for they shall be called the children of God.» Ah! but you do not often bless the peace-makers, do you? The man who comes between two beligerents, and bears the stroke himself-the man who will lie down on the earth, and plead with others that they would cease from warfare-these are the blessed. How rarely are they set on high. They are generally set aside, as people who cannot be blessed, even though it seem that they try to make others so. Here is the world turned upside down. The warrior with his garment stained in blood, is put into the ignoble earth, to die and rot; but the peace-maker is lifted up, and God’s crown of blessing is put round about his head, and men one day shall see it, and struck with admiration they shall lament their own fully, that they exalted the blood-red sword of the warrior, but that they did rend the modest mantle of the noon who did make peace among mankind.

And to conclude our Saviour’s sermon, notice once more, that we find in this world a race of persons who have always been hated-a class of men who have been hunted like the wild goat; persecuted, afflicted, and tormented. As an old divine says, «The Christian has been looked upon as if he had a wolfs head, for as the wolf was hunted for his head everywhere, so has the Christian been hunted to the uttermost ends of the earth.» And in reading history we are apt to say, «These persecuted persons occupy the lowest room of blessedness; these who have been sawn asunder, who have been burned, who have seen their houses destroyed, and have been driven as houseless exiles into every part of the earth-these men who have wandered about in sheep’s skins, and goat’s skins,-these are the very least of mankind.» Not so. The gospel reverses all this, and it says, «Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for their’s is the kingdom of heaven.» I repeat it: The whole of these beatitudes are just in conflict with the world’s opinion. and we may quote the words of the Jew, and say, «Jesus Christ was ‘the man who turned the world upside down.’ «

And now I find I must be very brief for I have taken so much time in endeavoring to show how Christ’s gospel turned the world upside down, in the position of its characters, that I shall have no space left for anything else. But will you have patience with me, and I will briefly pass through the other points?

I have next to remark, that the Christian religion turns the world upside down in its maxims. I will just quote a few texts which show this very clearly. «It was said by them of old time, eye for eye and tooth for tooth; but I say unto you, resist not evil» It has generally been held by each of us, that we are not to allow anyone to infringe upon our rights; but the Saviour says, «Whosoever would sue thee at the law and take thy cloak, let him take thy coat also.» «If any man smite thee on the one cheek, turn unto him the other also.» If these precepts were kept, would it not turn the world upside down? «It has been said by them of old time, love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy;» but Jesus Christ said, «Let love be unto all men.» He commands us to love our enemies, and to pray for them who despitefully use us. He says, «If thine enemy hunger, feed him, and if he thirst give him drink, for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.» This would indeed be turning the world upside down; for what would become of our war ships and our warriors, if at the port-holes where now we put our cannons, we should have sent out to some burning city of our enemies-for instance, to burning Sebastapol,-if we had sent to the houseless inhabitants, who had been driven from their homes, barrels of beef, and bundles of bread and clothes, to supply their wants. That would have been a reversal of all human policy, but yet it would have been just the carrying out of Christ’s law, after all. So shall it be in the days that are to come, our enemies shall be loved, and our foemen shall be fed. We are told too, in these times, that it is good to a man to heap unto himself abundant wealth, and make himself rich, but Jesus Christ turned the world upside down, for he said, there was a certain rich man who was clothed in scarlet, and fared sumptuously every day, and so on, and his fields brought forth abundantly; and he said, «I will pull down my barns, and build greater;» but the Lord says, «Thou fool!» That is reversing everything in this world. You would have made an Alderman of him, or a Lord Mayor; and fathers would have patted their boys on the head, and said, «That is all through his frugality and taking care; see how he has got on in the world; when he had got a good crop, he did not give it away to the poor, as that extravagant man does who has kept on working all his life, and never be able to retire from business; he saved it all up;-be as good a boy as So-and-so, and get on too.» But Christ said «Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee.» A turning of everything upside down. And others of us will have it, that we ought to be very careful every day, and always looking forward to the future, and always fretting about what is to be. Here is a turning of the world upside down, when Jesus Christ says, «Remember the ravens; they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feedeth them, are ye not better than they?» I do believe that at this day the maxims of business are clean opposed to the maxims of Christ. But I shall be answered by this, «Business is business.» Yes, I know business is business, but business has no business to be such business as it is. Oh! that it might be altered, till every man could make his business his religion, and make a religion of his business

I have not detained you long upon that point; and therefore I am free to mention a third. How Christ has turned the world upside down, as to our religious notions. Why, the mass of mankind believe, that if any man wills to be saved, that is all which is necessary. Many of our preachers do in effect preach this worldly maxim. They tell men that they must make themselves willing. Now, just hear how the gospel upsets that. «It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.» The world will have an universal religion too; but how Christ overturns that. «I pray for them; I pray not for the world.» He hath ordained us from among men. «Elect according to the foreknowledge of God, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth.» «The Lord knoweth them that are his.» How that runs counter to all the world’s opinion of religion! The world’s religion is this-«Do, and thou shalt live.» Christ’s religion is-«Believe and live.» We will have it, that if a man be righteous, sober upright, he shall enter the kingdom of heaven; but Christ says-This thou oughtest to have done; but still, not this can ever cleanse thee. «As many as are under the works of the law are under the curse.» «By the works or the law shall no flesh living be justified.» » Believe and live,» is just the upsetting of every human notion. Cast thyself on Christ: trust in him. Have good works afterwards; but first of all trust in him that died upon the tree. This is the overturning of every opinion of man. And hence mortals will always fight against it, so long as the human heart is what it is. Oh! that we knew the gospel! Oh! that we felt the gospel! For it would be the upsetting of all self-righteousness, and the casting down of every high look, and of every proud thing.

II. And now, beloved, spare me a little time, while I try to show THAT WHICH IS TRUE IN THE WORLD, IS TRUE IN THE HEART. Instead, however, of enlarging at full length upon the different topics, I shall make my last point the subject of examination.

Man is a little world, and what God does in the outer world, he does in the inner. If any of you would be saved your hearts must be turned upside down. I will now appeal to you, and ask you whether you have ever felt this-whether you know the meaning of it?

In the first place, your judgment must be turned upside down. Cannot many of you say, that which you now believe to be the truth of God is very far opposed to your former carnal notions? Why, if anyone had told you, that you should be a believer in the distinguishing doctrines of free and sovereign grace, you would have laughed him in the face. «What! I believe the doctrine of election? What! I ever hold the doctrine of particular redemption, or final perseverance? Pshaw! nonsense! It cannot be!» But now you do hold it, and the thing which you thought unreasonable and unjust, now seems to you to be for God’s glory, and for man’s eternal benefit. You can kiss the doctrine which once you despised, and you meekly receive it as sweeter than the droppings of honey from the honeycomb, though once you thought it to be as the very poison of asps, and gall, and wormwood. Yes, when grace enters the heart, there is a turning upside down of all our opinions; and the great truth of Jesus sits reigning on our soul.

Is there not, again, a total change of all your hopes? Why, your hopes used to be all for this world. If you could but get rich, if you could but be great and honored, you would be happy! You looked forward to it. All you were expecting was a paradise this side the flood. And now where are your hopes?-not on earth; for where your treasure is, there must your heart be also. You are looking for a city that hands have not piled; your desires are heavenly, whereas they were gross and carnal once. Can ye say that? Oh! all ye members of this congregation, can ye say that your hopes and your desires are changed? Are ye looking upward, instead of downward? Are you looking to serve God on earth, and to enjoy him for ever? Or are you still content with thinking «What ye shall eat, and what ye shall drink, and wherewithal ye shall be clothed?»

Again, it is a complete upsetting of all your pleasures. You loved the tavern once, you hate it now. You hated God’s house once; it is now your much-loved habitation. The song, the Sunday newspaper, the lewd novel-all these were sweet to your taste; but you have burned the books that once enchanted you, and now the dusty Bible from the back of the shelf is taken down, and there it lies wide open upon the family table, and it is read both morn and night, much loved, much prized and delighted in. The Sabbath was once the dullest day of the week to you. you either loitered outside the door in your shirt-sleeves, if you were poor, or if you were rich you spent the day in your drawing-room, and had company in the evening: now, instead thereof, your company you find in the church of the living God, and you make the Lord’s house the drawing-room where you entertain your friends. Your feast is no longer a banquet of wine, but a banquet of communion with Christ. There are some of you who once loved nothing better than the theater, the low concert room, or the casino: over such places you now see a great black mark of the curse, and you never go there. You seek now the prayer meeting, the church meeting, the gathering of the righteous, the habitation of the Lord God of hosts.

It is marvellous how great a change the gospel makes in a man’s house too. Why, it turns his house upside down. Look over the mantle-piece-There is a vile daub of a picture there, or a wretched print, and the subject is worse than the style of the thing. But when the man follows Jesus he takes that down, and he gets a print of John Bunyan in his prison, or his wife standing before the magistrate, or a print of the apostle Paul preaching at Athens, or some good old subject representing something Biblical. There is a pack of cards and a cribbage board in the cupboard; he turns them out, and instead he puts there perhaps the monthly magazine, or mayhaps few works of old divines, just here and there one of the publications of the Religious Tract Society, or a volume of a Commentary. Every thing is upside down there. The children say, «Father is so altered.» They never knew such a thing. He used to come home sometimes drunk of a night, and the children used to run up stairs and be in bed before he came in; and now little John and little Sarah sit at the window and watch till he comes home; and they go toddling down the street to meet him, and he takes one in his arms, and the other by the hand, and brings them home with him. He used to teach them to sing «Begone dull care» or something worse, now he tells them of «Gentle Jesus meek and mild» or puts into their mouth some sweet song of old. A jolly set of companions he used to have come to see him, and a roaring party there used to be of them, on a Sunday afternoon; but that is all done with. The mother smiles upon her husband: she is a happy woman now; she knows that he will no longer disgrace himself by plunging into the vilest of society, and being seduced into the worst of sins. Now, if you could take a man’s heart out, and put a new heart right into him, it would not be half so good, if it were another natural heart, as the change that God works, when he takes out the heart of stone, and puts in a heart of flesh-

«A heart resigned, submissive, meek,
Our dear Redeemer’s throne
Where only Christ is heard to speak,
Where Jesus reigns alone.»

I put, then, the question to you again: Have you been turned upside down? How about your companions? You loved those the best who could swear the loudest, talk the fastest, and tell the greatest falsehoods: now you love those who can pray the most earnestly, and tell you the most of Jesus. Everything is changed with you. If you were to meet your old self going down the street, you would not know him, except by hearsay; you are no relation to him at all. Sometimes the old gentleman comes to your house, and he begins to tempt you to go back; but you turn him out of doors as soon as you can, and say, «Begone! I never got on so long as I knew you; I had a ragged coat to my back then, and I was always giving the publican all my money; I never went to God’s house, but cursed my Maker, and added sin to sin, and tied a mill-stone round my neck. So away from me, I will have nothing to do with you; I have been buried with Christ, and I have risen with him. I am a new man in Christ Jesus, old things have passed away, and behold all things have become new.»

I have some here, however, who belong to a different class of society, who could not indulge in any of these things; but ah! ladies and gentlemen, if you are ever converted, you must have as great a sweeping out as the poorest man that ever lived. There must be as true a turning upside down in the salvation of an earl, or a duke, or a lord, as in the salvation of a pauper or a peasant. There is as much sin in the higher ranks as in the lower, and sometimes more, because they have more light, more knowledge, more influence, and when they sin, they not only damn themselves, but others too. O you that are rich, have you had a change too? Have the frivolities of this world become sickening things to you? Do you turn away with loathing from the common cant and conventionalism of high life? Have you forsaken it? and can you now say, «Although I am in the world, yet am I not of it; its pomps and vanities I do eschew; its pride and its glory I trample under feet; these are nothing to me; I would follow my Master bearing his cross, through evil report and through good report?» If such be not the case, if you are not changed, remember, there are no exceptions; one truth is true for all-«Except ye be born again, ye cannot see the kingdom of heaven.» And that amounts in substance to my test: except ye be thoroughly renewed, turned upside down, ye cannot be saved. «Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;» for he that believeth shall be sanctified and renewed-shall he saved at last-but he that believeth not must be cast away in the great day of God’s account.

На странице представлены текст и перевод с английского на русский язык песни «Living In A World (Turned Upside Down)» из альбома «Lost And Found Volume 1 : Imagination» группы Private Lives.

Текст песни

You never know what you want Look me in the eye And tell me something I want to hear You say you want to take a drive Over the bridge to the other side So you don’t like the view from here? Have you ever had more than One thought in your mind Do you ever know? Further than your own kind Say you’re living in a world turned upside down No, you just hanging around Waiting for someone to rescue you Choosing east to west You still don’t know what’s best The only choice is Satisfy your own desire Using all the boys Each and everyone like a toy Is this what you admire? Have you ever had more than One thought in your mind Do you ever know? Further than your own kind Say you’re living in a world turned upside down No, you just hanging around Waiting for someone to rescue you.

Перевод песни

Ты никогда не знаешь, чего хочешь. Посмотри мне в глаза И скажи что-нибудь, что я хочу услышать, Ты говоришь, что хочешь прокатиться По мосту на другую сторону, Чтобы тебе не нравился вид отсюда? У тебя когда-нибудь было больше Одной мысли в голове? Ты когда-нибудь знаешь? Дальше, чем твой собственный вид. Скажи, что ты живешь в перевернутом мире. Нет, ты просто ошиваешься В ожидании кого-то, кто спасет тебя, Выбирая с востока на Запад, Ты все еще не знаешь, что лучше, Единственный выбор-удовлетворить свое желание, Используя всех мальчиков, Каждого, как игрушку. Это то, чем ты восхищаешься? У тебя когда-нибудь было больше Одной мысли в голове? Ты когда-нибудь знаешь? Дальше, чем твой собственный вид. Скажи, что ты живешь в перевернутом мире. Нет, ты просто ошиваешься В ожидании, когда кто-нибудь спасет тебя.

«Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)» lyrics

Original Broadway Cast Of Hamilton Lyrics

«Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)»
(from «Hamilton: An American Musical» soundtrack)

[Company:]
The battle of Yorktown
1781

[Lafayette:]
Monsieur Hamilton

[Hamilton:]
Monsieur Lafayette

[Lafayette:]
In command where you belong

[Hamilton:]
How you say, no sweat
We’re finally on the field
We’ve had quite a run

[Hamilton/Lafayette:]
We get the job done

[Hamilton:]
So what happens if we win?

[Lafayette:]
I go back to France
I bring freedom to my people if I’m given the chance

[Hamilton:]
We’ll be with you when you do

[Lafayette:]
Go lead your men

[Hamilton:]
I’ll see you on the other side

[Lafayette:]
‘Til we meet again, let’s go!

[Ensemble:]
I am not throwin’ away my shot!
I am not throwin’ away my shot!
Hey yo, I’m just like my country, I’m young
Scrappy and hungry
And I’m not throwin’ away my shot!
I am not throwin’ away my shot!

[Hamilton:]
‘Til the world turns upside down…

[Ensemble:]
‘Til the world turns upside down!

[Hamilton:]
I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory
This is where it gets me: on my feet
The enemy ahead of me
If this is the end of me, at least I have a friend with me
Weapon in my hand, a command, and my men with me
Then I remember my Eliza’s expecting me.
Not only that, my Eliza’s expecting
We gotta go, gotta get the job done
Gotta start a new nation, gotta meet my son!
Take the bullets out your gun!

[Hamilton:]
The bullets out your gun!

[Hamilton:]
We move under cover and we move as one
Through the night, we have one shot to live another day
We cannot let a stray gunshot give us away
We will fight up close, seize the moment and stay in it
It’s either that or meet the business end of a bayonet
The code word is ‘Rochambeau’ dig me?

[Hamilton:]
You have your orders now, go, man, go!
And so the American experiment begins
With my friends all scattered to the winds
Laurens is in South Carolina, redefining brav’ry

[Hamilton/Laurens:]
We’ll never be free until we end slavery!

[Hamilton:]
When we finally drive the British away
Lafayette is there waiting

[Hamilton/Lafayette:]
In Chesapeake Bay!

[Hamilton:]
How did we know that this plan would work?
We had a spy on the inside
That’s right

[Hamilton/Company:]
Hercules Mulligan!

[Mulligan:]
A tailor spyin’ on the British government!
I take their measurements, information and then I smuggle it

[Company:]
Let’s go! Woo!
Left! Right! Hold!
Go!
What! What! What!

[Hamilton:]
After a week of fighting, a young man in a red coat stands on a parapet

[Lafayette:]
We lower our guns as he frantically waves a white handkerchief

[Mulligan:]
And just like that, it’s over. We tend to our wounded, we count our dead

[Laurens:]
Black and white soldiers wonder alike if this really means freedom

[Hamilton:]
We negotiate the terms of surrender
I see George Washington smile
We escort their men out of Yorktown
They stagger home single file
Tens of thousands of people flood the streets
There are screams and church bells ringing
And as our fallen foes retreat
I hear the drinking song they’re singing…

[All men:]
The world turned upside down

[Full Company:]
The world turned upside down
The world turned upside down
The world turned upside down
Down
Down, down, down

[Lafayette:]
Freedom for America, freedom for France!

[Company:]
Down, down, down

[Hamilton:]
Gotta start a new nation
Gotta meet my son

[Company:]
Down, down, down

[Mulligan/Lafayette/Laurens:]
We won!

[Mulligan/Lafayette/Laurens/Hamilton/Washington:]
We won!

[Company:]
The world turned upside down!