Posts

Ian Robb 2018

Description on YouTube video below seems to be written by Robb: "The song is about climate change, and is aimed at those who call themselves Christian but helped to elevate a racist, misogynist, lying narcissist with no interest in helping to save our planet, to the most powerful political post in the world. Their God didn't make this mess, and prayer won't fix it. As someone who lives in a Northern city that has experienced devastating tornadoes and serious flooding in the past year, I'm tired of seeing right wing idiots sweep away any political measures and incentives to clean up our corporate and individual acts. Listen, watch and weep."

Ian Robb: https://ianrobb1.bandcamp.com/track/god-and-the-orange-clown

When your forests turn to ash, when your fields all turn to dust
When your islands are awash, how will you choose, who will you trust
When the mudslides hurtle down, who will you turn to for recourse
When your greens all fade to brown, who will you praise, who will you curse

Chorus:
And will you go to church to pray, leaving your children to atone
This world you’ve left in disarray is not God’s work, it is your own

When tornadoes wreck your town, when the tempest scours your coast
Will you still heed the orange clown, will you still cheer his every boast
And when it’s time to make our choice, whose truth, whose lies will you believe
Will you ignore the braying voice, will you refuse to be deceived

So good Christians all awake, fight the tide or surely drown
For your blessed children’s sake, drive away the orange clown
And when the oceans all run dry, and when rocks melt in the sun
When you can no more deny, then you’ll see what you have done 

Si Kahn 1975

I did my part in World War II, Got wounded for the nation.
Now my lungs are all shot down. There ain’t no compensation.
Sitting on my front porch swing, I’m like someone forgotten,
Head all filled with angry thoughts And lungs filled up with cotton.

Chorus:
I’m gonna go to work on Monday one more time.
I’m gonna go to work on Monday one more time, one more time.
I’m gonna go to work on Monday one more time.

The doctor says I smoke too much. He says that I’m not trying.
He says he don’t know what I’ve got. But we both know he’s lying.
The doctor says both lungs are gone. There ain’t no way to shake it.
But I can’t live without a job. Somehow, I’ve got to take it.

The last time I went near my job, I thought my lungs were broken.
Chest bound down like iron bands, I couldn’t breathe for choking.
They tell me I can’t work at all. There ain’t no need to trying.
But living like some used up thing Is just this short of dying.

The politicians in this state, They’re nothing short of rotten.
They buy us off with fancy words And sell us out to cotton.
Sitting on my front porch swing, I’m like someone forgotten,
Head all filled with angry thoughts And lungs filled up with cotton. 

Paul Metsers 1983

From the singing of Hank Chapin

Every time I call you on the phone And I run out of money I wish I was a rich man
Then, when I get you home alone And you say I’m your honey I’m glad I’m who I am

Chorus:
Give me the simple life It’s not much to ask From the working day
Under the blade of the knife We bend to the task And we labour away

Over on the other side Through the fancy gate The grass is greener
But we lost the ones that tried They rue their fate And they drown their dreams

Up in the big blue sky There’s a mountain to climb Honey, won’t you let me?
I just want to give it a try It doesn’t matter what I find It’ll keep me free

Lightning never strikes twice Unless you’re unlucky Then, of course, you die
And the miner’s work ain’t nice And his boots are mucky But he looks you in the eye 

Kate Wolf 1982

Kind friends all gathered ’round there’s something I would say
That what brings us together here has blessed us all today
Love has made a circle that holds us all inside
Where strangers are as family and loneliness can’t hide

Chorus:
Give yourself to love if love is what you’re after
Open up your heart to the tears and laughter
And give yourself to love
Give yourself to love

I’ve walked these mountains in the rain I’ve learned to love the wind
I’ve been up before the sunrise to watch the day begin
I always knew I’d find you though I never did know how
But like sunshine on a cloudy day you stand before me now

Love is born in fire it’s planted like a seed
Love can’t give you everything but it gives you what you need
Love comes when you are ready love comes when you’re afraid
It will be your greatest teacher the best friend you have made 

Ann Percival

There was an old woman who baked every day
She made gingerbread men, piled them high on a tray
She put some in the oven, and something went wrong
When she opened up the door, one jumped out and sang this song

Chorus:
He said run run run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Man (x2)

He ran through the kitchen and out the front door
Past the old man in the garden who was doing his chores
The old man hollered Stop! You’re my lunch! You come back!
But the Gingerbread Man would be nobody’s snack

Well he ran through the woods past some picnicking bears
He smelled so scrumptious he just had to be theirs
They got up to chase him ’cause he smelled so good and sweet
But the Gingerbread Man would be nobody’s treat

Well he ran past a cow grazing in the hay
The old cow said “don’t let him get away!”
But the old cow was too slow to get up on that trail
And anybody listening could hear that cookie wail

Well he ran past some mowers busy at their work
They said “Did a cookie run by? Are we going berserk?”
They put down their mowers to follow his sweet scent
And anybody listening could hear him as he went

Well he ran over mountains and valleys and rocks
Til he came to a river and a hungry fox
The fox was so sly, he devised a wicked plan
For the crunchy demise of the Gingerbread Man

He said do you need some help to get to the other side?
Hop on my back, I will take you for a ride
So he hopped onto his back, onto his neck, onto his nose
The fox slipped him in his mouth and that’s the way our story goes

Bridge:
All of the others gathered round to get a crumb
And anybody listening could hear his tummy hum

(Chorus hummed then regular) 

Stan Rogers 1977

Cold wind on the harbour and rain on the road
Wet promise of winter brings recourse to coal
There’s fire in the blood and a fog on Bras d’Or
The giant will rise with the moon

‘Twas the same ancient fever in the Isles of the Blest
That our fathers brought with them when they “went West”
It’s the blood of the Druids that never will rest
The giant will rise with the moon

Chorus:
So crash the glass down, move with the tide
Young friends and old whiskey are burning inside
Crash the glass down, Fingal will rise
With the moon

In inclement weather the people are fey
Three thousand year stories as the night slips away
Remembering Fingal feels not far away
The giant will rise with the moon

The wind’s in the North, there’ll be new moon tonight
But we have no circle to dance in its sight
So light a torch, bring the bottle, and build the fire bright
The giant will rise with the moon 

Sean Cooney 2016?

Just before Christmas 2015, the Middlesbrough garage group owner spent thousands of pounds of his own money buying and kitting out a single decker bus as a travelling industrial kitchen, venturing across Europe where he and his team were able to feed thousands of refugees a day. The Dunkirk ("Barosch") refugee camp in France was designed for under 100 people was overcrowded with over 2500 mostly Iraqi Kurds in winter 2015. Occupants were relocated to a nearby site better-designed for the higher number of people in early 2016.

Well the mist was lifting from Roseberry Topping, and the moors were cold and green
And the driver swore there’d be no stoppin’ as he made for the A19
And in the borough, lads and lasses were sleeping safe and still
When Ghafoor Hussain hit the road, with a million mouths to fill

Chorus:
It’s beans and rice, and rice and beans
And a hand when you fall
For there’s a friendly face, a better place
And a future for us all

He couldn’t bear the lads and lasses’ faces on the tv screens
As they drowned and froze in hateful places with nothing but their dreams
So he bought a bus, and he filled it up with beans and rice and tea
And on a winter’s morn he he headed south and crossed over the sea

Now in Dunkirk we remember yet the soldiers on the sand
800 ships we’ll not forget, that came to lend a hand
But here comes one more vessel now, across the angry sea
To serve 3,000 meals a day, and 10,000 cups of tea

Now some have stared into his face and wondered if he’s mad
But he knows he’d be in their place, if it weren’t for the chance he had
And the lads and lasses’ hopeful faces are what drives him on
So here’s to Ghafoor and his Bus, and a better world to come 

Rudyard Kipling 1892 / Peter Bellamy 1976

To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,
To my brethren in their sorrow overseas,
Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed,
And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.
Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses,
And faith he went the pace and went it blind,
And the world was more than kin while he held the ready tin,
But to-day the Sergeant’s something less than kind.

Chorus:
We’re poor little lambs who’ve lost our way, Baa! Baa! Baa!
We’re little black sheep who’ve gone astray, Baa-aa-aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha’ mercy on such as we, Baa! Yah! Bah!

Oh, it’s sweet to sweat through stables, sweet to empty kitchen slops,
And it’s sweet to hear the tales the troopers tell,
To dance with blowzy housemaids at the regimental hops
And thrash the cad who says you waltz too well.
Yes, it makes you cock-a-hoop to be “Rider” to your troop,
And branded with a blasted worsted spur,
When you envy, O how keenly, one poor Tommy living cleanly
Who blacks your boots and sometimes calls you “Sir”.

If the home we never write to, and the oaths we never keep,
And all we know most distant and most dear,
Across the snoring barrack-room return to break our sleep,
Can you blame us if we soak ourselves in beer?
When the drunken comrade mutters and the great guard-lantern gutters
And the horror of our fall is written plain,
Every secret, self-revealing on the aching white-washed ceiling,
Do you wonder that we drug ourselves from pain?

We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,
And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.
God help us, for we knew the worst too young!
Our shame is clean repentance for the crime that brought the sentence,
Our pride it is to know no spur of pride,
And the Curse of Reuben holds us till an alien turf enfolds us
And we die, and none can tell Them where we died. 

Dave Carter 2001

"I was thinking one night about the planet and about a conversation with a friend in Texas, Tom Noe. I started thinking about gods and goddesses, more about goddesses. I woke up the next morning with this song in my head. It's not one I can take credit for having written, like Dylan says, I just wrote it down. Twenty-five minutes later I had the whole thing. Kinda an eco-spirituality number."

Dave Carter & Tracy Grammar: https://davecartertracygrammer.bandcamp.com/track/gentle-arms-of-eden

On a sleepy endless ocean when the world lay in a dream,
There was rhythm in the splash and roll, but not a voice to sing;
So the moon shone on the breakers and the morning warmed the waves
Till a single cell did jump and hum for joy as though to say:

Chorus:
This is my home; this is my only home.
This is the only sacred ground that I have ever known;
And should I stray in the dark night alone.
Rock me, goddess, in the gentle arms of Eden.

Then the day shone bright and rounder till the one turned into two,
And the two into ten thousand things, and old things into new;
And on some virgin beachhead one lonesome critter crawled,
And he looked about and shouted out in his most astonished drawl:

Then all the sky was buzzing and the ground was carpet green,
And the wary children of the wood went dancing in between,
And the people sang rejoicing when the field was glad with grain
This song of celebration from their cities on the plain:

Now there’s smoke across the harbor, and there’s factories on the shore,
And the world is ill with greed and will and enterprise of war;
But I will lay my burden in the cradle of your grace,
And the shining beaches of your love and the sea of your embrace. 

trad

Well General Taylor gained the day (Walk him along, John, Carry him along)
Well General Taylor he gained the day (Carry him to his burying ground)

Chorus:
Tell me way, hey, you stormy (Walk him along, John, carry him along)
Tell me way, hey, you stormy (Carry him to his burying ground)

We’ll dig his grave with a silver spade…His shroud of the finest silk will be made

We’ll lower him down on a golden chain…On every inch we’ll carve his name

General Taylor he’s all the go…He’s gone where the stormy winds won’t blow

General Taylor he’s dead and he’s gone…Well General Taylor he’s long dead and gone