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about

Dick Gaughan provided a great tune for this powerful poem, written by Joseph Bovshover, a Belorussian Jewish anarchist who emigrated to New York. Revolutionary spirit is seen as a force of nature, like an earthquake. If the tensions caused by injustice and exploitation reach a critical threshold, revolution will occur. Eggs is eggs. The song is a reminder that revolution and rebellion can (and do) come from the right as well as the left.

lyrics

I come like a comet new born
Like the sun that arises at morning,
I come like the furious tempest
That follows a thundercloud's warning,
I come like the fiery lava
From cloud-covered mountains volcanic,
I come like a storm from the north
That the oceans awake to in panic
I come because tyranny planted
My seed in the hot desert sand,
I come because masters have kindled
My fury with every command,
I come because man cannot murder
The life-giving seed in his veins,
I come because liberty cannot
Forever be fettered by chains
I come because tyrants imagine
That mankind is only their throne,
I come because peace has been nourished
By bullets and cannon alone,
I come because one world is two
And we face one another with rage,
I come because guards have been posted
To keep out the hope of the age
From earliest times the oppressed have awaked me and called me to lead them,
I guided them out of enslavement
And brought them to high roads of freedom,
I marched at the head of their legions
And hailed a new world at its birth
And now I shall march with the peoples
Until they unfetter the earth


And you, all you sanctified moneybags
Bandits anointed and crowned,
Your counterfeit towers of justice
And ethics will crash to the ground,
I'll send my good sword through your hearts
That have drained the world's blood in their lust
Smash all your crowns and your sceptres
And trample them into the dust
I'll rip off your rich purple garments
And tear them to rags and to shreds,
Never again will their glitter
Be able to turn people's heads,
At last your cold world will be robbed
of it's proud hypocritical glow,
For we shall dissolve it as surely
As sunlight dissolves the deep snow.
I'll tear down your cobweb morality
Shatter the old chain of lies,
Catch all your black-hooded preachers
And choke them as though they were flies.
I'll put a quick end to your heavens
Your gods that are deaf to all prayer,
Scatter your futile old spirits
And clean up the earth and the air.
And though you may choke me and shoot me
And hang me your toil is in vain,
No dungeon, no gallows can scare me
Nor will I be frightened by pain.
Each time I'll arise from the earth
And break through all your weapons of doom,
Until you are finished forever
Until you are dust in the tomb

credits

from Heavy Duty - Ballads of the Unfree, released February 1, 2018
Dick Gaughan / Bovshover

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about

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Bill Lloyd Kendal, UK

Bill Lloyd is a folk singer and multi-instrumentalist from the Lake District in northern England. He plays 5 string banjo and Galician gaita bagpipes, uilleann pipes and whistles, He is a versatile singer in the ‘high lonesome’ mountain style, delicate ballads, and ‘come-all-ye’ folk styles. Bill is an experienced storyteller, compere, music promoter, record producer and festival organiser. ... more

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