Guthrie's Machine: the Protest Music Thread

games
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Are you ready
Are you ready
Are you ready
Are you ready

Are you ready for the time of your life
It’s time to stand up and fight
It’s alright
It’s alright

Hand in hand we take a caravan to the mother land
One by one we gonna stand up with pride
One that can’t be denied
Stand up
Stand up

From the highest mountain, valley low
We’ll join together with hearts of gold
Now the children of the world can see
This is a better place for us to be
The place in which we were born
So neglected and torn apart

Every woman every man
Join the caravan of love
(Stand up) stand up
Stand up

Everybody take a stand
Join the caravan of love
(Stand up) stand up
Stand up

I’m your brother
I’m your brother don’t you know
She’s my sister
She’s my sister don’t you know

We’ll be living in a world of peace
And the day when everyone is free
We’ll bring the young and the old
Won’t you let your love flow, from your heart

Every woman every man
Join the caravan of love
(Stand up) stand up
Stand up

Every body take a stand
Join the caravan of love
(Stand up) stand up
Stand up

I’m your brother
I’m your brother don’t you know
She’s my sister
She’s my sister don’t you know

So are you ready (he’s coming)
Are you ready (he’s coming)
Are you ready (he’s coming)
Are you ready (he’s coming on the caravan)
You better get ready (go for it)
You better get ready (go for it)
You better get ready (go for it)
You better get ready

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_

:musical_note: I dunno what I’m scared of, but I know that I am scared
All the headlines feel like nightmares when I’m lyin’ in my bed
If the virus doesn’t kill us someone might chop off our heads
But no one chops down Yew trees on Parliament Square
And they’ll lie all day in Westminster, and they’ll lie all day in court
And they’ll lie about it later on the evenin’ news reports
Till there’s a hundred thousand bodies lyin’ on the desert floor
And they’ll point their guns at Russia and they’ll start another war
And in the media offices all the paintbrushes are there
To fill the lines with black and white and fill our minds with fear
And pump us full of fashion and a dull sense of despair
Till we’re well behaved consumers with no questions and no cares

But we don’t believe you, we don’t believe you
we don’t believe you anymore
We don’t believe you, we don’t believe you
we don’t believe you anymore

And they’ll pass the buck and cover it up and distort every hand
Till the picture that they’re paintin’ is too hard to understand
And the canvas stretches over every border of every land
Cross the trade routes and religions and those bodies in the sand
And if we’re after Britain first then we should probably be last
Before UK independence we should give back what isn’t ours
Like the shirts and ties we’re wearin’ made by slaves from afar
But those shirts and ties can’t hide the emblems tattooed on their hearts
And we should give back all the oceans and the islands and the sky
Cos’ they don’t belong to any man and no man has the right
To tell another human being that their access is denied
To any corner of this planet or any moment of their lives

But we don’t believe you, we don’t believe you
we don’t believe you anymore
We don’t believe you, we don’t believe you
we don’t believe you anymore

And the music on the adverts plays like prisoners of war
Who’ve been forced to sell the weapons that they used to abhor
And if you tried to ask questions then they’ll back you into corners
And say you can’t ask questions if you haven’t got the answers
While imaginary money grows on electronic trees
And trickles through the masses and fuels the disease
Cos’ the only epidemic with no sign of a vaccine
Are the global corporations and their foreign policies

But we don’t believe you, we don’t believe you
we don’t believe you anymore
We don’t believe you, we don’t believe you
we don’t believe you anymore :musical_note:

83

:musical_note: In 1649 to St. George’s Hill
A ragged band they called the Diggers
Came to show the people’s will
They defied the landlords
They defied the laws
They were the dispossessed
Reclaiming what was theirs

We come in peace they said
To dig and sow
We come to work the lands in common
And to make the wasteland grow
This earth divided
We will make whole
So it can be
A common treasury for all

The sin of property
We do disdain
No one has any right to buy and sell
The earth for private gain
By theft and murder
They took the lands
Now everywhere the walls
Rise up at their command

They make the laws
To chain us well
The clergy dazzle us with heaven
Or they damn us into hell
We will not worship
The God they serve
The God of greed who feeds the rich
While poor men starve

We work we eat together
We need no swords
We will not bow to masters
Or pay rent to the lords
We are free men
Though we are poor
You Diggers all stand up for glory
Stand up now

From the men of property
The orders came
They sent the hired men and troopers
To wipe out the Diggers’ claim
Tear down their cottages
Destroy their corn
They were dispersed
Only the vision lingers on

You poor take courage
You rich take care
The Earth was made a common treasury
For everyone to share
All things in common
All people one
We come in peace
The order came to cut them down

84

Since the American union movement seems to be having a revival…

:musical_note: Five hundred men sacked for refusing
To ever cross a picket line
The voices down the ages warning
Never cross a picket line
You must never cross a picket line

Two years gone by but still they never
Ever cross a picket line
With their wives and children they stand together
Never cross a picket line
You must never cross a picket line

Look away, look away
Look away out west to San Francisco
Look away, look away
Look away down south to Sydney Harbour
Where the dockers have organised
The world’s longest picket line

Technically this is an illegal strike
Never cross a picket line
But technically workers have no rights
Never cross a picket line
You must never cross a picket line

Oh, I want to live in a Brand New Britain
Never cross a picket line
Where workers rights are enshrined and written
Never cross a picket line
You must never cross a picket line

Look away, look away
Look away out west to San Diego
Look away, look away
Look away out east to far Osaka
Where the dockers have organised
The world’s longest picket line

The Tories are gone but there’s no improvement
Never cross a picket line
Now where is the might of the Labour movement
Never cross a picket line
You must never cross a picket line

Look away, look away
Look away down south to Auckland City
Look away, look away
Look away out west to old Vancouver
Where the dockers have organised
The world’s longest picket line

Where the dockers have realised
You must never cross a picket line :musical_note:

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:musical_note: I sailed from Seattle, far away from friends and home
Across the blue Pacific to the Land of Morning Calm
Here’s a helmet and a rifle and your prophylactics, too
And as sure as I’m your captain, we will make a man of you

The 105’s were pounding, and their thunder shook the night;
I asked my bold commander, “Who am I here to fight?”
“It’s the Slopes and the Slants, it’s the Gooks and Chinks,” said he
And I wondered if their captain ever said the same of me

I’d seen the mountain winter, where the air is cold and still;
But, oh, that frozen Chosun, it was a living hell
With the fever and the jaundice and a hundred kinds of mold
We were slaughtered in our mummy bags by bayonets and cold

And everywhere I traveled from the Gap at Kumari
The Yong-San Reservation to the camps at Moonsanee
From the golden plains of Inchon, my boots rotting on my feet
All I heard were crying babies while their mothers walked the street

We bought watches, we bought cameras, we bought whores, and we bought booze;
With the little barefoot beggars bending down to shine our shoes
We gave them back our candy, and to answer our desire
Oh, we gave them round-eyed babies who died outside the wire

I got off in Seattle, and I climbed on board a train
I rode it through the mountains with a fever in my brain
I could find no reason to remain here any more
Oh, there was no sign around me of the life I’d lived before

Then what’s the pride in country if it robs a man of will?
What’s the pride in manhood if a man will rape and kill?
And what’s the pride in killing if the dead will rise gain?
Ah, but there’s a pride in knowing that the enemy’s within

So, listen all you troopers, here’s a lesson you should know
From an older brownshoe soldier, who marched off long ago;
They will use your pride and passion for to settle all their fights
Keep your pride in your trousers, and your captain in your sights

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image

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I saw a newspaper picture from the political campaign
A woman was kissing a child, who was obviously in pain
She spills with compassion, as that young child’s
Face in her hands she grips
Can you imagine all that greed and avarice
Coming down on that child’s lips
Well I hope I don’t die too soon
I pray the lord my soul to save
Oh I’ll be a good boy, I’m trying so hard to behave
Because there’s one thing I know, I’d like to live
Long enough to savor
That’s when they finally put you in the ground
I’ll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down
When England was the whore of the world
Margaret was her madam
And the future looked as bright and as clear as
The black tarmacadam
Well I hope that she sleeps well at night, isn’t
Haunted by every tiny detail
'Cos when she held that lovely face in her hands
All she thought of was betrayal
And now the cynical ones say that it all ends the same in the long run
Try telling that to the desperate father who just squeezed the life from his only son
And how it’s only voices in your head and dreams you never dreamt
Try telling him the subtle difference between justice and contempt
Try telling me she isn’t angry with this pitiful discontent
When they flaunt it in your face as you line up for punishment
And then expect you to say thank you straighten up, look proud and pleased
Because you’ve only got the symptoms, you haven’t got the whole disease
Just like a schoolboy, whose head’s like a tin-can
Filled up with dreams then poured down the drain
Try telling that to the boys on both sides, being blown to bits or beaten and maimed
Who takes all the glory and none of the shame
Well I hope you live long now, I pray the lord your soul to keep
I think I’ll be going before we fold our arms and start to weep
I never thought for a moment that human life could be so cheap
'Cos when they finally put you in the ground
They’ll stand there laughing and tramp the dirt down

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Today, the Colour Line
Is the Power Line
Is the Poverty Line
Racism and imperialism work in tandem
And poverty is their handmaiden
Those who are poor and powerless to break out of their poverty
Are also those who by and large are non-white, non-western, third world
Poverty and powerlessness are intertwined in colour, in race
Discrimination and exploitation feed into each other today
Under global capitalism
We are back to primitive accumulation
plunder on a world scale
Only this time, the pillage is accompanied by aid, sustained by expert
advice and underpinned by programmes and policies that perpetuate dependency
The IMF, The World Bank, Structural Adjustment Programmes
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade - GATT,
are just a few of the organisations, schemes, projects
which under the guise of developing the third world, plunder it.
Trade agreements and commodity price-fixing, patents and
intellectual property rights
They lock them into paralytic dependency
There’s no such thing as illegal immigrants,
only illegal governments
Black is not just the colour of our skins
It’s the colour of our politics
There’s no such thing as illegal immigrants,
only illegal governments
Today, the colour line
is the power line
is the poverty line

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Dr Akala:

Dude’s come a long way. :blush:

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