Weekend Tunes: The Levellers

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/05/11/weekend-tunes-the-levellers.html

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Hey, Seamus. You keep sharing music new to me that I love as soon as I hear it. Please keep doing so!

A small reciprocation (thought you probably know it already): Cosmo Sheldrake.

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I don’t know why, but I wasn’t expecting such a “youthful” sounding voice. Maybe it was the close up face shot at the beginning, but I was expecting him to sound more like Rag 'n Bone Man or something. (who also is young, but sounds more like an “old voice” to me).

The Pogues, The Levellers…
only one band missing

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The Levellers also supported the anarchist news-letter SchNEWS by paying their rent for eight years.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150315122737/http://www.schnews.org.uk/index.php

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Thank you for reminding me of The Levellers! I’ve got a bunch of their early CDs and especially loved this song of theirs:

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Finally got to see these guys when they played in New York. Great band.
It’d be nice if TouchTunes had some of their songs on the jukeboxes around town.

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A happy 30th to the Levellers, from the Lowlands of Holland.

Is it the other 1980s folk-punk band whose name referenced a 17th century political movement?

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For some reason I thought of Runrig. I don’t know why, because they are folk rock and not punk in any way.

It might be because when I was a kid there always seemed to be a Runrig tape in my dad’s car glovebox.

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This is a bit newer… But well worth a looksy and the sentiments are similar
“Poem” by She Drew the Gun. https://youtu.be/Q15_m1XEdAI

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Haha, yeah, great! Almost forgot about those guys :slight_smile:
At this point, let’s open the can of worms and add some weird ones:
The Bollock Brothers

Frank Tovey/Fad Gadget:

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Ahh yes, the [True] Levellers… who later went on to become Diggers.

The World Turned Upside Down
by Leon Rosselson
performed here by Billy Bragg and Amanda Palmer

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 waste grounds grow

This earth divided
We will make whole
So it will be
A common treasury for all

The sin of property
We do disdain
No man has any right to buy and sell
The earth for private gain

By theft and murder
They took the land
Now everywhere the walls
Spring 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 the 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
But still the vision lingers on

You poor take courage
You rich take care
This earth was made a common treasury
For everyone to share

All things in common
All people one
We come in peace
The orders came to cut them down

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Love this. Have not heard this version.

Reminds me a bit of this in theme and delivery, but not in spirit:

Dancing to Hilda’s cabinet band
Doing the one where you never turn around
Up the hall slowly, down the hall fast
And a dignified finish on your arse

Put your right boot in, put it in again
Poll tax your girl in the middle of the ring
Privatise your partner, do it on your own
Kick the smallest one amongst you, promenade home

Swing your lady half a mile up the centre aisle
Wage cut your neighbour, do it with a smile
Bow to the caller, dozie-dole the men
And deregulate the couple at the bottom end

Underneath the arches, make yourself at home
Walls made of cardboard, beds made of stone
Penny on the water, twopence on the sea
And threepence on the roundabout and round go we

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