A cool and educational song by Al Stewart. Laurence Juber does some incredible acoustic
guitar work, unfortunately all I have here are the chords!

Capo: 2

Intro:

C Cm G F x2 (single strum)

C G F C G C x2

I’m here sitting in the wreck of Europe
With a map of Europe
Spread out in a hall of Versailles
And every single nationality and principality
have come for a piece of the pie

I’m sitting in the wreck of Europe
With a map of Europe
And the lines and the borders are gone
We’ve got to do this jigsaw puzzle
It’s an awful muddle
But somehow we’ve got to go on

Lawrence of Arabia is waiting in the wings
He’s got some Arab sheikhs and kings
And we’re in debt to them somehow
Lawrence of Arabia has got this perfect vision
Gonna sell him down the river
There’s no time for him now

I think I’m gonna take a piece of Russia
And a Piece of Germany
And give them to Poland again
I’ll put together Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia
And hope that is how they’ll remain

Then I’ll take a bit of Turkey
Then a lot of Turkey
This is all quite a heady affair
There’s Persia and Iraq to pick up
And there’s Churchill’s hiccup
And we can’t leave it up in the air

Woodrow Wilson waves his fourteen points around
And says “The time to act is now
Won’t get this opportunity again”
Woodrow Wilson has his fourteen points
But Clemenceau turns to Lloyd George

And says “You know that
God himself had only ten”

Today I’m carried by a league of notions
By a league of notions
I don’t think I quite understand
I only know from this commotion
There’s a chance that we could turn
The world in the palm of our hands

Voices in the corridors of power
Candles burning hour by hour
Still you know that to the victors go the spoils

Such a great responsibility to make it fair
And there must be some reparations now
And don’t forget the oil

Today I’m carried by a league of notions
By a league of notions
I don’t think I quite understand
I only know from this commotion
There’s a chance that we could turn
The world in the palm of our hands

Pax vobiscum
Wo-Oh, Pax vobiscum

(End on C)

The strumming pattern changes here. Pluck quarter notes on the bass line and single,
percussive strums after each plucked note. Go back to regular strumming at the end of
the phrase (after the Fm, for the C G C)