55 Days At Peking

Theme from the film
"55 Days At Peking" (1963)
(Dimitri Tiomkin / Paul Francis Webster)

Bom-bom-bom...

The year was Nineteen-Hundred
T'is worth remembering
The men who lived through
Fifty-five days at Peking

T'was called the Boxer Insurrection
A bloody, Oriental war
Against all nations
Of the Diplomatic Corps

The flags of France and Britain
How they fluttered in the breeze
The Italian and the Russian
And the flag of the Japanese

Then came the sound of bugles
The rolling drums of fury
And the streets of Peking
Were as empty as a tomb

Bom-bom-bom-bom-bom-bom

The Empress of all China
Gave the signal to begin
Let the foreign devils
Be driven from Peking

They stormed the French Ligation
They attacked with shot and shell
And they came in blood red blouses
Screaming "Sha Shou" as they fell

The drums have long been muffled
The bugles cease to ring
But through the ages
You can hear them echoing

Bom-bom-bom-bom-bom-bom
Fifty-five days at Peking

Bom-bom-bom-bom-bom-bom
Bom-bom, bom-bom-bom
Fifty-five days at Peking