This is one of my posts where I “review” Star Trek episodes. I will be giving each one a star rating. I sometimes will make some comments about non-political parts of them that I like or don’t like. I’ll sometimes use the issues raised in the episode to discuss similar issues in real life. And I will sometimes simply high-light the progressive politics of ST. ST is in-line with the three original themes of this blog, as I explain in the first ST post where I offer some general thoughts about ST.
I’m not very familiar with The Original Series and there might be some small amount of material there that would affect what I say about Star Trek (i.e. how often religion is mentioned)
Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).
“The Passenger” See this for a plot summary.
This is another episode that is overwhelmingly just a mystery, although it’s a pretty good one (I especially like how Bashir speaks and acts differently (his face, his body language) when he is being controlled by Vantika)- I give it three stars out of five.
“Move Along Home” See this for a plot summary.
Not much political in this episode. But it is interesting, Starfleet’s first formal reception for a Gamma Quadrant alien race. The story is good, I also like the rhyme they have to say at one point as they work their way through the labyrinth. I give it three stars out of five.
“The Nagus” See this for a plot summary.
This is the first episode where we meet the Grand Nagus, the leader of the Ferengi financial empire. It’s not made very clear exactly how things work, but he’s basically the political leader of the Ferengi and works to promote Ferengi business interests, regulates who gets which market, and enforces the extreme capitalist rules of the Ferengi business community, which exist for the benefit of the most cut-throat businesspeople, not for those with ethics, not for workers, and not for consumers or the public. Also, the Grand Nagus has the power to appoint his successor, so the system is very undemocratic. It’s also common for rivals for the position to threaten each other, although it’s unclear how often such threat are acted on- but the threats themselves further indicate that Ferengis don’t have a democratic political culture.
We are also reminded that Ferengi don’t value formal education (in an earlier episode, it’s explained that children are tossed into the darwinian business community to learn about surviving economically), and the men are very sexist.
Another aspect of this episode is the development of Nog and Jake’s friendship, despite their parents discouraging them based on how Ferengi and humans usually don’t get along. This is welcome, as their friendship is one of my favorite aspects of the series, it takes the multi-culturalism of ST a bit further than usual, and it also sets the stage for Nog later becoming the first Ferengi in Starfleet.
It’s a good episode, I give it three stars out of five.
“Vortex” See this for a plot summary.
This episode is mostly about Odo’s desire to learn about where he comes from and whether or not there are others like him, a question which has a very interesting answer as his people end up being the main villains in DS9.
The alien, Croden, from the Gamma Quadrant who is sort of the center of the episode is from a society where the punishment for every single crime is very harsh. He’s also some kind of political dissident whose two wives are killed by the security forces as punishment for his dissent and who then kills the members of the security forces. This sort of thing, where it’s vague about the politics involved, isn’t as cool as it would be if they were specific about it and it was about opposing bigotry or organizing workers or something, but it does raise the general issue of human rights and is therefore pretty cool.
Odo, who was supposed to hand Croden over to the authorities on his planet, ends up allowing him and his daughter to board a Vulcan vessel to start a new life.
Overall a good episode, I give it two stars out of five.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Reviews B
This is one of my posts where I “review” Star Trek episodes. I will be giving each one a star rating. I sometimes will make some comments about non-political parts of them that I like or don’t like. I’ll sometimes use the issues raised in the episode to discuss similar issues in real life. And I will sometimes simply high-light the progressive politics of ST. ST is in-line with the three original themes of this blog, as I explain in the first ST post where I offer some general thoughts about ST.
I’m not very familiar with The Original Series and there might be some small amount of material there that would affect what I say about Star Trek (i.e. how often religion is mentioned)
Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).
“Babel” See this for a plot summary.
Basically no political themes at all. It’s a good story though, I’d give it two stars out of five.
“Captive Pursuit” See this for a plot summary.
Almost the entire story is about an alien from the Gamma Quadrant who is bred by other aliens to act as hunting game. It raises issues of respecting sentient life, and is anti-hunting in general, although there are differences between the alien and, say, a deer, since the alien is more intelligent than an animal and can communicate with those who hunt him, which makes it different and worse than hunting animals. As far as normal hunting, I’ve got mixed feelings about that, maybe lean towards negative; as far as hunting beings comparable to humans, obviously that’s pretty messed up.
Besides that, the only other political issue to come up is at the very beginning with a conversation that has nothing to do with the rest of the story. A female employee of the Ferengi Quark (Ferengi are very sexist) whose job is to entertain customers gambling, complains to Sisko about Quark requiring her through her contract to provide him with sexual services. Sisko says that he’ll explain to Quark that he cannot enforce that part of the contract.
The main story is pretty good, the idea of the hunt, the technology of the aliens, and the first encounter with life from the Gamma Quadrant are very interesting, and O’Brien’s friendship with Tosk is good. I give it three stars out of five.
“Q-less” See this for a plot summary.
This is the only Q episode on DS9, which I have mixed feelings about. Although the Voyager Q episodes were pretty good, in general I’m not a big fan of the Q episodes. On the other hand, considering how Q was part of the other two 1990s series, it would be weird if there wasn’t one on DS9, and this one has something that is special. That’s how Sisko relates to Q compared to how Picard handled Q. At one point Sisko hits Q, something which Picard never did.
The only political theme is the references to how Vash has an ethics problem with her archeology work. As she admits, she’s more interested in making a profit than anything else. This results in her taking items of various planets cultures and histories that the people on those planets want to keep on their planets.
Overall a good episode, I give it two stars out five.
“Dax” See this for a plot summary.
Overwhelmingly just a mystery, basically no political issues at all. But a good story anyway, even though this is the 4th or 5th time I have seen it and I know how it ends. It also goes into more detail about the Trill host-symbiant relationship, something which is neat and lays the basis for more stories later. I’d give it three stars out of five.
I’m not very familiar with The Original Series and there might be some small amount of material there that would affect what I say about Star Trek (i.e. how often religion is mentioned)
Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).
“Babel” See this for a plot summary.
Basically no political themes at all. It’s a good story though, I’d give it two stars out of five.
“Captive Pursuit” See this for a plot summary.
Almost the entire story is about an alien from the Gamma Quadrant who is bred by other aliens to act as hunting game. It raises issues of respecting sentient life, and is anti-hunting in general, although there are differences between the alien and, say, a deer, since the alien is more intelligent than an animal and can communicate with those who hunt him, which makes it different and worse than hunting animals. As far as normal hunting, I’ve got mixed feelings about that, maybe lean towards negative; as far as hunting beings comparable to humans, obviously that’s pretty messed up.
Besides that, the only other political issue to come up is at the very beginning with a conversation that has nothing to do with the rest of the story. A female employee of the Ferengi Quark (Ferengi are very sexist) whose job is to entertain customers gambling, complains to Sisko about Quark requiring her through her contract to provide him with sexual services. Sisko says that he’ll explain to Quark that he cannot enforce that part of the contract.
The main story is pretty good, the idea of the hunt, the technology of the aliens, and the first encounter with life from the Gamma Quadrant are very interesting, and O’Brien’s friendship with Tosk is good. I give it three stars out of five.
“Q-less” See this for a plot summary.
This is the only Q episode on DS9, which I have mixed feelings about. Although the Voyager Q episodes were pretty good, in general I’m not a big fan of the Q episodes. On the other hand, considering how Q was part of the other two 1990s series, it would be weird if there wasn’t one on DS9, and this one has something that is special. That’s how Sisko relates to Q compared to how Picard handled Q. At one point Sisko hits Q, something which Picard never did.
The only political theme is the references to how Vash has an ethics problem with her archeology work. As she admits, she’s more interested in making a profit than anything else. This results in her taking items of various planets cultures and histories that the people on those planets want to keep on their planets.
Overall a good episode, I give it two stars out five.
“Dax” See this for a plot summary.
Overwhelmingly just a mystery, basically no political issues at all. But a good story anyway, even though this is the 4th or 5th time I have seen it and I know how it ends. It also goes into more detail about the Trill host-symbiant relationship, something which is neat and lays the basis for more stories later. I’d give it three stars out of five.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Reviews A
This is one of my posts where I “review” Star Trek episodes. I will be giving each one a star rating. I sometimes will make some comments about non-political parts of them that I like or don’t like. I’ll sometimes use the issues raised in the episode to discuss similar issues in real life. And I will sometimes simply high-light the progressive politics of ST. ST is in-line with the three original themes of this blog, as I explain in the first ST post where I offer some general thoughts about ST.
I’m not very familiar with The Original Series and there might be some small amount of material there that would affect what I say about Star Trek (i.e. how often religion is mentioned)
Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).
“Emissary” Parts 1 and 2. For plot summaries, see this and this.
Although DS9 is one of my two favorite series, I was never a big fan Sisko being the Emissary, especially considering how towards the end of the series it turns out he’s not completely human- and it’s not like he’s part alien, he’s more supernatural (at least that’s how it seems to me). I’m also not interested in the lengthy effort at explaining to the wormhole aliens about linear existence.
On that note I should say that I generally like the religious/spiritual aspect of DS9. ST has generally suggested that jettisoning religion is part of the development of humanity along with world government, universal acceptance of multiculturalism, a shift from militarism to exploration with Starfleet, and some kind of democratic socialism. The only (or at least almost only) religious people in ST are aliens, but with the exception of the Klingons it wasn’t discussed much. It was nice to see a people like the Bajorans who are friendly to the Federation with some religion and spirituality, especially considering how those beliefs are often referred to as having helped them deal with and throw off the Cardassian Occupation.
So, I have mixed feelings about that part of Emissary. It of course sees the discovery of the wormhole, without which DS9 would be about 1/3 as interesting as it is. Considering how the station is stuck in one place, without the wormhole they’d either have to use the same setting more and more often, or they’d have to spend a lot more time traveling to places further away, which probably wouldn’t have worked. Also, of course, the wormhole brings the Dominion, which is a great part of the overall ST story.
They briefly introduce Nog, one of my favorite secondary characters on DS9. They also introduce what I find very interesting and often humorous, how Sisko was friends with the Dax symbiant when the symbiant had an old man as a host, and now the host is a young woman. Of course all the other characters are introduced.
I think that’s about it. It’s a good episode- far from one of my favorites but very necessary to get the series going. I give the two parts together two out of five stars.
“Past Prologue” For the plot summary, see this.
This episode raises issues about how guerrillas respond to the end of the foreign occupations they’re fighting.
1) The Cardassians, although they kept many objects sacred to the Bajoran people and made clear in several ways that they still didn’t respect the Bajorans, did end their occupation of Bajor and Bajor had a new government. But a small faction of the resistance (the Khon-Ma) continue attacks on Cardassia, to “punish” them for half a century of occupation. Now, horrible things WERE done to the Bajorans, but punishment isn’t appropriate in that situation. And that’s not a common reaction. Looking at post-Apartheid South Africa, there seems to have been VERY little turning of the tables, probably close to ZERO. Based on their record during The Troubles of almost NEVER intentionally killing civilians and based on how little support there is since 1997 for continuing armed struggle even while British rule more or less (less) continues, it seems very unlikely that Irish republicans will engage in that sort of behavior when the British leave. There will probably be a VERY small amount such behavior, or more likely, NONE. (the impression given in this episode is that the Khon-Ma had done A LOT to inflict punishment on Cardassia)
2) At one point the main Khon-Ma character says that he wants “Bajor for Bajorans.” To some degree this is fine in general, although depending on what is meant, there’s possibly a problem. For one thing, there are people left on Bajor who are either half Cardassian/half Bajoran, or in some cases, completely Cardassian. Also, although this would be a matter for the Bajorans, I think it would be good for them to join the Federation (at one point they almost joined, but when Sisko had a vision and advised them not to at that point, they decided not to). Federation membership is probably incompatible with “Bajor for Bajorans” as Federation citizens from elsewhere would have to be welcomed, not to mention, their independence would be limited. As I’ve explained here, Sinn Fein and the nationalist community have good anti-racist records and welcome people from outside Ireland (except of course people trying to police and run part of Ireland). They welcome people who come for brief periods of work and also probably consider people who immigrate to become Irish to some degree. Unless it’s made clear that it’s not excluding people who should be made to feel welcome, I’m not a big fan of phrases like “Bajor for Bajorans”
3) It also raises the issue of third party intervention. It seems like it was a good idea for the Bajoran provisional government to invite Starfleet to establish a presence after the Cardassians left. Cardassia might have continued seriously hurting Bajor if given a free-hand, implementing some kind of neo-colonialism, occasionally attacking, that sort of thing. Bajor also got some technical assistance with reconstruction and some advice on political development. And those are the benefits before the wormhole was discovered, which, without the Federation presence, would have resulted in Cardassia re-occupying Bajor as a base from which to control the wormhole. And, although it’s complicated by his role as the emissary and there’s at least one debatable kind of exception, Sisko (throughout the series) does a good job of respecting Bajoran independence. This reminds me of what I wrote about the role of the international community as Ireland is united, as it will be someday. My thoughts on that are here.
Overall a good episode, I give it three out of five stars.
“A Man Alone” For the plot summary, see this.
This episode is significantly about character development, plus the main plot story about a murder. It’s when the friendship between Jake and Nog starts, and that’s a good part of the series. It’s mostly just a mystery story, besides the character development and the establishment of a school for children on DS9. There’s three political issues that come up:
1) Odo, not trained in the human rights culture of the Federation, and having learned his job under the Cardassians, feels that he can throw anyone off the station if he wants to, and Sisko has to explain that that’s not how it works.
2) When Keiko starts up a school, we hear more about how the Ferengi believe in something that’s more or less a pure market system of economics and business, and that it’s a very important part of their culture. As you would guess, I don’t like that much, but I like to interpret this part of the role that Ferengis have in ST series as meaning “capitalism would look something like this if it weren’t for various forces like organized labor, the left, progressives, and most liberals.” I mean, American capitalism could be worse, our society could be even more capitalist.
3) We also hear, perhaps for the first time in ST, that the Ferengi are ridiculously sexist, although we learn more about that later. You could say something similar about this that I said about capitalism above. It also sets the scene for some later episodes where that sexism is seriously challenged.
The mystery is good, although probably better the first 1-2 times I saw this episode. Overall a good episode, I give it two out of five stars.
I’m not very familiar with The Original Series and there might be some small amount of material there that would affect what I say about Star Trek (i.e. how often religion is mentioned)
Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).
“Emissary” Parts 1 and 2. For plot summaries, see this and this.
Although DS9 is one of my two favorite series, I was never a big fan Sisko being the Emissary, especially considering how towards the end of the series it turns out he’s not completely human- and it’s not like he’s part alien, he’s more supernatural (at least that’s how it seems to me). I’m also not interested in the lengthy effort at explaining to the wormhole aliens about linear existence.
On that note I should say that I generally like the religious/spiritual aspect of DS9. ST has generally suggested that jettisoning religion is part of the development of humanity along with world government, universal acceptance of multiculturalism, a shift from militarism to exploration with Starfleet, and some kind of democratic socialism. The only (or at least almost only) religious people in ST are aliens, but with the exception of the Klingons it wasn’t discussed much. It was nice to see a people like the Bajorans who are friendly to the Federation with some religion and spirituality, especially considering how those beliefs are often referred to as having helped them deal with and throw off the Cardassian Occupation.
So, I have mixed feelings about that part of Emissary. It of course sees the discovery of the wormhole, without which DS9 would be about 1/3 as interesting as it is. Considering how the station is stuck in one place, without the wormhole they’d either have to use the same setting more and more often, or they’d have to spend a lot more time traveling to places further away, which probably wouldn’t have worked. Also, of course, the wormhole brings the Dominion, which is a great part of the overall ST story.
They briefly introduce Nog, one of my favorite secondary characters on DS9. They also introduce what I find very interesting and often humorous, how Sisko was friends with the Dax symbiant when the symbiant had an old man as a host, and now the host is a young woman. Of course all the other characters are introduced.
I think that’s about it. It’s a good episode- far from one of my favorites but very necessary to get the series going. I give the two parts together two out of five stars.
“Past Prologue” For the plot summary, see this.
This episode raises issues about how guerrillas respond to the end of the foreign occupations they’re fighting.
1) The Cardassians, although they kept many objects sacred to the Bajoran people and made clear in several ways that they still didn’t respect the Bajorans, did end their occupation of Bajor and Bajor had a new government. But a small faction of the resistance (the Khon-Ma) continue attacks on Cardassia, to “punish” them for half a century of occupation. Now, horrible things WERE done to the Bajorans, but punishment isn’t appropriate in that situation. And that’s not a common reaction. Looking at post-Apartheid South Africa, there seems to have been VERY little turning of the tables, probably close to ZERO. Based on their record during The Troubles of almost NEVER intentionally killing civilians and based on how little support there is since 1997 for continuing armed struggle even while British rule more or less (less) continues, it seems very unlikely that Irish republicans will engage in that sort of behavior when the British leave. There will probably be a VERY small amount such behavior, or more likely, NONE. (the impression given in this episode is that the Khon-Ma had done A LOT to inflict punishment on Cardassia)
2) At one point the main Khon-Ma character says that he wants “Bajor for Bajorans.” To some degree this is fine in general, although depending on what is meant, there’s possibly a problem. For one thing, there are people left on Bajor who are either half Cardassian/half Bajoran, or in some cases, completely Cardassian. Also, although this would be a matter for the Bajorans, I think it would be good for them to join the Federation (at one point they almost joined, but when Sisko had a vision and advised them not to at that point, they decided not to). Federation membership is probably incompatible with “Bajor for Bajorans” as Federation citizens from elsewhere would have to be welcomed, not to mention, their independence would be limited. As I’ve explained here, Sinn Fein and the nationalist community have good anti-racist records and welcome people from outside Ireland (except of course people trying to police and run part of Ireland). They welcome people who come for brief periods of work and also probably consider people who immigrate to become Irish to some degree. Unless it’s made clear that it’s not excluding people who should be made to feel welcome, I’m not a big fan of phrases like “Bajor for Bajorans”
3) It also raises the issue of third party intervention. It seems like it was a good idea for the Bajoran provisional government to invite Starfleet to establish a presence after the Cardassians left. Cardassia might have continued seriously hurting Bajor if given a free-hand, implementing some kind of neo-colonialism, occasionally attacking, that sort of thing. Bajor also got some technical assistance with reconstruction and some advice on political development. And those are the benefits before the wormhole was discovered, which, without the Federation presence, would have resulted in Cardassia re-occupying Bajor as a base from which to control the wormhole. And, although it’s complicated by his role as the emissary and there’s at least one debatable kind of exception, Sisko (throughout the series) does a good job of respecting Bajoran independence. This reminds me of what I wrote about the role of the international community as Ireland is united, as it will be someday. My thoughts on that are here.
Overall a good episode, I give it three out of five stars.
“A Man Alone” For the plot summary, see this.
This episode is significantly about character development, plus the main plot story about a murder. It’s when the friendship between Jake and Nog starts, and that’s a good part of the series. It’s mostly just a mystery story, besides the character development and the establishment of a school for children on DS9. There’s three political issues that come up:
1) Odo, not trained in the human rights culture of the Federation, and having learned his job under the Cardassians, feels that he can throw anyone off the station if he wants to, and Sisko has to explain that that’s not how it works.
2) When Keiko starts up a school, we hear more about how the Ferengi believe in something that’s more or less a pure market system of economics and business, and that it’s a very important part of their culture. As you would guess, I don’t like that much, but I like to interpret this part of the role that Ferengis have in ST series as meaning “capitalism would look something like this if it weren’t for various forces like organized labor, the left, progressives, and most liberals.” I mean, American capitalism could be worse, our society could be even more capitalist.
3) We also hear, perhaps for the first time in ST, that the Ferengi are ridiculously sexist, although we learn more about that later. You could say something similar about this that I said about capitalism above. It also sets the scene for some later episodes where that sexism is seriously challenged.
The mystery is good, although probably better the first 1-2 times I saw this episode. Overall a good episode, I give it two out of five stars.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Some new lyrics
So, this is another lyrics post. Some of these are really good, those will be towards the bottom, the okay ones will be towards the top. Also, three of them are about anti-racist skinheads, the first post I did with those songs contains some notes in the intro that you might want to read before you read those lyrics.
That's about it. Like I said, I start with the ones that are only okay and end with the ones that are the best. The ones that involve twisting lyrics I politically despise (see this for an explanation) will be identified with a ++ and I'll specify what the original is.
For the rest of the poems click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom (there are at least two pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page).
(I've been and will probably continue to be, kind of lazy about indicating when the chorus is repeated twice at the end of the song, that sort of thing)
I just deleted one of the worst poems I've done, about the Black Panthers
1. RASH. About Irish anti-racist skinheads.
2. People's Democracy. About People's Democracy, the left-wing/civil rights/anti-partition group in N. Ireland that existed from 1968 until sometime in the 1980s.
3. Spirit of the Streets. Anti-racist skinheads.
4. PIRA. The IRA in N. Ireland.
5. Red Rider. Anti-racist skinheads.
6. Stoop Down Low Party. About how bad the Social Democratic and Labour Party in N. Ireland is.
UPDATE 12/12/10 I just took down a poem about the ANC. The quality annoyed me, AND I'm not sure I have enough knowledge about the ANC's struggle to write a poem about it, even a brief one.
*****
“RASH” based on “One Shot Paddy” by Justice, original lyrics are here.
1. V-E day refers to the day victory was declared in Europe during WWII.
2. the last two lines don’t rhyme in the original, which seems to work for listening to the original, and I’m going to keep it as is, just changing IRA to ARA.
3. Brown is the color of fascism.
4. RASH is Red and Anarchistic SkinHeads.
5. ARA is Anti-Racist Action, a group connected to anti-racist skinheads.
**6. 24% of this version is me, 76% is the original.
7. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
8. I don't know why I kept the first two lines as they were in the original. I would have made more sense if the poem was about Irish SHARPs/RASH (I kind of bumped into (on the web) an Irish SHARP, and when he criticized me for my position on the North, I ripped him a new one). I might change that first verse, one way or the other.
9. I am now changing this poem to being about IRISH RASH, instead of American RASH.
10. AFA is Anti-Fascist Action (Ireland)
In Ireland many years ago or so the legend says
Saint Patrick roamed the hills and glens to drive the snakes away,
But now Ireland has anti-fascist skins- they’re bad news for the brown
Their name is RASH and it’s fash that they will hound!
[chorus]
The fash are getting worried they’ve all gone underground
If the RASH see them they know they’re going down
So the next time that you see the fash with their faces full of fright
Look out for the RASH and make sure that your laces aren’t white
Through the cities of Ireland these gallant heroes roam
They’ll wander through the streets they like to call their home,
And when they find fash they loudly charge forward and attack
It is then that you will hear the crack of bone as the fash are pushed back
Chorus
So if you’re home at night and the newsflash it is read,
The RASH has been at work – another fash bashed in the head
And when it comes time to celebrate V-E day’s cheer,
Remember the RASH and the gallant AFA!
Chorus
****
“People’s Democracy” based on “We Are The Law” ++ RACIST by Kill Baby Kill, original lyrics are here.
1. People’s Democracy was a militant, left-wing, and initially student part of the Civil Rights movement in N. Ireland starting in Oct. 1968 (it later became a political party and then around 1980 declined, and many members joined Sinn Fein and then it adopted another name). There’s more about them here, and the first 1/3 of this. PD doesn’t exist anymore, so this doesn’t violate my rules on publishing songs about actual organizations.
2. The first line is kind of a reference to the ambush at Burntollet.
3. The references to fighting are meant to be about 95% non-violent. I imagine there was some involvement with rioting (especially Devlin's role in the Battle of the Bogside) and there was some support for the IRA, but I think PD were largely about non-violence.
4. Probably something like 50%-60% of PD in 1969 were Marxist.
5. I’m not sure how into Irish pride they were, but I think the vast majority in 1969 identified as Irish and that probably went up to 100% about 2 years later, and I only like to change as much as I need to. Irish pride, most of the time is different than white pride. (I just heard something making me think that it's probably a small minority of northern nationalists that would talk about "Irish pride"; I still feel odd completely re-writing that line, so I'm going to keep it)
6. The Six-Counties is a republican term for N. Ireland.
**7. This version is about 46% me, 54% the original.
8. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
9. PD were very anti-racist and had connections with the Black Panthers.
Rise up all you fallen marchers, rise up and take your stands again.
Let us march for a new tomorrow, let us fight until the day we win
Marching into countless battles, students marching side by side.
Nothing stronger than the troops of Marx, nothing stronger than Irish pride.
Student legions marching for radical change, starting in Oct 1968.
To all of those who cross our path: capitalism and sectarianism we do hate
Never will they take us down, we’re born to fight and so we will.
The Six-Counties are our battleground, for the working-class we’re fighting still.
Chorus:
We are marching on the street.
PD… we take on the elite.
We will win and you know why.
People’s Democracy will never die.
Irish men and women the time has come,
to take down all the Unionist scum.
Our marching days are here now,
to our mighty legions they shall bow.
So listen here, we are socialists,
we keep on fighting Brits and Unionists.
We keep on fighting til sectarianism ends,
to this government we shall never bend
2nd Chorus
We are marching on the street.
PD… we take on the elite.
We will win and you know why.
we’re People’s Democracy and we will never die.
*******
“Spirit of the Streets” based on “We Are the Law” ++RACIST by Kill Baby Kill, original lyrics are here.
1. “Spirit of the streets” is probably more associated with traditional, non-racist skinheads than with anti-racist skinheads (SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice, SHARP) but I’ve seen SHARP youtube videos that included imagery with that phrase.
2. Skinheads have a sense of working-class pride and/or pride in being a skinhead. With the anti-racists, they do represent the best of the skinhead culture.
3. Skinheads wear different colored laces on their boots to indicated their politics or lack thereof.
4. The culture being referred to is the SKINHEAD culture, or subculture, which SHARPs feel is at risk from the Nazi skinheads (also known as boneheads).
5. The reference to workers seems to go a bit beyond how I normally talk about the working-class and anti-racist skinheads (traditionally skinhead is overwhelmingly working-class and probably remains so, or at least mostly so). If it does drift to the left, and only some small majority of anti-racist skinheads are more or less left-wing, that’s fine, I’m a leftist and that's how I'll sometimes write the songs.
6. In various ways, anti-racist skinheads are helpful to those who struggle en masse, even though probably something like 1/3 of anti-racist skinheads don’t really think about that (there’s a spectrum on this, and many are relatively non-political).
**7. This version is 33% me, 67% the original.
8. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
UPDATE 2/1/11 9. As far as helping "those who struggle en mass." A: Although many/most SHARPs don't care about that much, if at all, the fact is that what they do is helpful for people trying to combat racism non-violently; B: I use that rhyme pretty often, because I often forget to try similar words like "last."
Rise up all you fallen fighters, rise up and take your stands again.
Let us fight for a new tomorrow, let us fight until the day we win.
Marching into countless battles, Skinheads marching side by side.
Nothing stronger than the skins of SHARP, nothing stronger than Skinhead pride.
Shaven-headed legions march for freedom, Nazis won’t escape their fate
To all Nazis who cross our path: change your laces before it’s too late
Never will they take us down, we’re born to fight and so we will.
Our streets are our battleground, for the working-class and our culture we’re fighting still.
Chorus:
We are the spirit of the streets
Skinheads… We’re the elite.
We wear our boots and you know why.
SHARP Skinheads will never die.
Workers now the time has come,
to save your class from the scum.
The boneheads’ days are over now,
to our mighty legions they shall bow.
So listen here, this is our town,
we keep on fighting the Nazi clowns
We keep on fighting for the working-class,
fighting to help those who struggle en masse
2nd Chorus
We are the spirit of the streets
Skinheads… We’re the elite.
We wear our boots and you know why.
we’re SHARP Skinheads and we will never die.
*******
“PIRA” based on “CYC” ++LOYALIST by Rab C. original lyrics are here (this is probably the most offensive thing I listen to, it might be upsetting)
1. The original is loyalist. This is about the Provisional IRA.
2. The smell is from the firing of weapons.
3. AK-47s are automatic rifles, RPGs are Rocket Propelled Grenades.
4. Peeler is police. Squaddies are British soldiers.
5. The Warsaw ghetto was one of the few places where there was Jewish resistance to the Holocaust. There’s a great movie about it called “Uprising.” (see this). You might think that this reference is innapropriate, considering that the IRA accepted aid from Nazi Germany and did some things that might have slightly benefited Nazi Germany. I did an entire post about this where I ripped the IRA a new one over it, and went half as far about Irish neutrality during the war. For my post on this, go here.
6. The RUC were, until 2001, the police.
7. The song, including the last line, is not an endorsement of continuing armed struggle past 1997.
8. This is the 3rd song in which I assume that republican paramilitaries wore combat boots. It just worked too well in some ways, and it’s possible some/most/all of them DID wear combat boots. UPDATE 3/11/10: A good source has told me that, yes, sometimes they did, but it was more common in rural areas.
9. The song describes something which probably happened zero or one time the entire conflict, although some things almost as intense probably happened something like five times. I’ve seen video of one gun-fight that was sort of similar.
10. The first two lines don’t rhyme in the original or my version, but in both it seems to work.
**11. 46% of this version is me, 54% is the original. Also I ignored one entire verse that I couldn’t do much with.
12. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
UPDATE 2/1/11 13. As far as triangulating fire, I am almost certain that's something combatants in combat do, although I can only find a small number of web-pages with that phrase. I believe it refers to pinning your opponent down with fire from multiple directions, or something like that.
13. UPDATED 2/8/16 Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.
All told their partners when they got home that,
They didn't know where the smell came from,
They attacked with AKs and RPGs and boots on their feet,
And they forced them all the way back down the street,
Cos they hate the Queen and the House of Lords,
They’re the band that defended the Lower Falls ward
All the peelers were acting like Nazi pricks,
And the Provos triangulated their fire and put them in a fix
It was the maddest thing that you ever did see,
All the young soldiers in D Company
They battled them good and they dealt them a real blow
They fought like the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto
When the Squaddies tried to intervene,
They got it too the best you've ever seen,
The RUC ran away in total retreat,
They left their colleagues behind, littering the street
The crowds all cheered as the Provos marched by,
All the soldiers with their head held high,
They clapped their hands and they stapmed their feet,
Republican Fighters are on the street.
So please love don't be mad with me,
Send my uniform out for a wee dry clean,
And if the peelers break down the door,
Tell 'em Ireland unfree will always be at war.
****
UPDATE 7/27/11 There used to be a poem here about the killing of five communists by the Klan and Nazis in 1979. Apparently there's VERY few anti-racists out there who believe that their deaths should be commemorated. There's also the fact that it had potential to give former friends and potential allies the wrong idea about my beliefs.
****
“Red Rider” based on “White Rider” ++RACIST by Skrewwdriver, original lyrics are here.
1. This is my 3rd song about Red and Anarchistic SkinHeads (RASH) exclsuively, which is kind of over-representing thier numbers among anti-racist skinheads, but A: I’m a leftist and close the political center of RASH, and B: I needed a color, and there’s not much of a color for the rest of the anti-racist skinheads (blue’s close, but doesn’t symbolize them the way that red symbolizes communism).
2. Historically skinheads have been into scooters, and I think that today is much more popular with anti-racist and non-racist skins than it is with Nazis. So, the “rider” part actually makes a lot of sense.
3. I’m tempted to de-sex the reference to fore-fathers, but it’s largely referring to, for example, those who fought fascism in the Spanish civil war or those who fought with the Allies in WWII (at the very least those who were motivated by anti-fascism and fought in the Atlantic/N. Africa/Europe, since we’re not talking about Japanese-imperialist skinheads), so the people I’m referring to would be something like 90% male. UPDATE 3/18/15 I added "fore-mothers."
4. Pride in this version refers to working-class pride.
5. Just like the other anti-fascist version of this song I’ve done, the reference to standing fast is a bit problematic, but works more or less, in this case, better than the other one if you consider that it’s calling on workers to oppose bigotry and fascism in whatever way they feel comfortable but to also support anti-racist skinheads (unless they're pacifists).
6. Just to be clear, that’s all peopleS meaning all cultures.
7. Overwhelmingly, when white supremacists try working within one of the two mjaor parties, it’s the Republican party (there's probably only some small minority of Republican tools who are aligned with the white supremacists, although there's a larger number that flirt with white supremacists) (I do know of at least one case where Nazi skinheads worked the election campaign of a Republican).
8. The culture referred to is the skinhead culture, which anti-racist skinheads feel is under threat from Nazi skinheads.
**9. This version is 23% me, 77% the original.
10. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
You ride through the streets with your head held up high
For the working-class and your culture you're willing to die
Your forefathers and fore-mothers fought and your forefathers fore-mothers died
They died for a feeling they felt deep inside
Chorus
Red rider, red rider, your strength is your pride
red rider, red rider, you'll stand, never hide
red rider, red rider, your boots are your voice
You scorn the conscripted, you're fighting through choice
Your banners are unfolded, carry them with love
To fight for the working-class is a gift from above
Some fools will oppose you, true workers will stand fast
But victory shall be ours for the multi-racial working-class
You feel love for all peoples, disdain for the fools
The enemy's allied with the Republican tools
You fight for the working-class which shall be proud and free
And the only reward that you crave is victory
******
“Stoop Down Low Party” based on “Just Look Around” by Sick Of It All, original lyrics are here.
1. This is set sometime in the early 1990s.
2. Stoops are members of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Sinn Fein’s moderate rival in the nationalist community. See this.
3. FF and FG are Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, the two main parties in the Republic and are right around the center on economics, especially FG, and FF has a history of corruption. They also don’t care about the North as much as they should, especially FG (recently FF started organizing in the North).
4. The Irish Army is often sent overseas on UN Peace-Keeping missions. Although I think that’s great (and I think most republicans would agree), and it’s unsure what republicans would have done if they had had control of it during the conflict, I like the idea of republicans complaining about how the Army is being sent over-seas when there’s a need for it in the North! Volunteers are members of republican paramilitaries.
5. Hoods are young, usually more or less apolitical nationalist youth who engage in behavior that they more or less shouldn’t be- basically criminal, although there’s a spectrum and probably some of it is what a lot teenagers do everywhere- smoking pot for example. Because there was no support for the police, Nationalists would turn to the IRA to deal with crime, and this created a lot of hostility between the IRA and their supporters (“Provos”) on one hand and the hoods on the other hand, especially since, as far as I can tell, some large minority of the time the IRA either went too far or should have done nothing at all.
6. The majority of Provos at that time would have been against homophobia, but I know that some large minority were homophobic.
7. The three groups I chose- Provos, hoods, and gay people, seem like the best substitutes for the chorus, and it pretty much makes sense. To whatever degree the hoods are political, they’re closer to the Provos than the SDLP and we’re talking about working-class Nationalist youth who don’t benefit from the SDLP’s moderate politics. The SDLP back then were also very homophobic.
8. The SDLP is very middle-class and elements of the nationalist middle-class about that time were doing very well.
9. The Lower Falls is a working-class nationalist area where, at that point, SF was getting something like 70% of the vote.
10. Although there were other problems with the education system (it was structurally biased against working-class kids (that’s in the process of being changed, by SF)), I decided to pick on the Catholic Church and their homophobia and moderate, almost pro-British politics.
11. The Dail is the parliament in Dublin, which has basically never shown as much concern about the North as it should.
12. Squaddies are British soldiers, an estate is basically a neighborhood. The hatred is aimed at the British government and the British Army.
**13. This version is 29% me, 71% the original.
14. There are places where the lines don't rhyme in either my version or the original.
15. The line about Irish mankind is off a little bit, but it says Northern Irish (within a couple hours of publishing I added Northern) so it's referring to the Nationalist population, it's pretty accurate, unemployment back then was pretty high for Catholics.
16. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
17. The voice in this poem is militant and sort of pro-IRA. But many of his/her complaints would also be voiced by a lot of SDLP voters and some SDLP members.
UPDATE 2/1/11 18. In the 5th line of the 2nd verse, I just replaced the word "they're" with the word "London's."
The question the stoops keep asking me
how can one so young be so bitter and angry
well, the answer is plain to see
maybe if they weren't so blind they'd see what i see
i see the Brits patrolling on our streets
on every corner they're asking for ID
i start riots whenever I can
but sometimes the Brits just keep driving by
i see the repression and unemployment of Northern Irish mankind
the greed of FF and FG has made them blind
to our problems
Dublin sends battallions overseas,
Volunteers right here are fighting a war everyday
Chorus:
I see the hood that hates the Provo
Provo against the gays, neighbor against neighbor
and they're all too blind to see
When we fight each other it puts the SDLP at ease
it keeps us so busy, so they can do what they please
election time comes and they're out for votes
that's when you see and hear from them the most
The North is what London's calling a democracy
that's just another word for hypocrisy
Nationalist workers keep fallin' for the SDLP’s bait
And when they realize, it's always too late
Chorus
As the stoops get richer, the Lower Falls goin' hungry
i've seen the toll it takes on the workers family
education system that's obsolete
Preaches bigotry and tells kids not to riot in the street
see a father's fear, hear a mother's cry
what kind of a Dail watches our children die
The squaddies raid every single home in the estate
then you're gonna ask me why I hate
Why don't you open up your eyes so you can see
open up your ears so you can hear
take a look around and you will find
take a look around and you will find out why
One last note: Even with the songs that are only about 10% me (and at the upper end, one is 75% me), I have a request, although I don't have strong feelings or expectations about this. First, I want credit for these songs. Second, I'd appreciate it if the notes follow the lyrics around the internet. If you modify the lyrics further, please either make some notes for the changes if you leave some of my changes, or just provide a link to this URL so people can see my version. Although I'm not sure how many people will like what I'm doing with the lyrics, to one degree or another (depending on how much I changed them) I'm proud of these songs- and at the risk of getting a little personal, if people like the songs, I could really use the extra boost of getting credit for them right now (or if you don't like them, they were all written by Sarah Palin- that fascist, what kind of sick person enjoys altering racist lyrics?).
That's about it. Like I said, I start with the ones that are only okay and end with the ones that are the best. The ones that involve twisting lyrics I politically despise (see this for an explanation) will be identified with a ++ and I'll specify what the original is.
For the rest of the poems click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom (there are at least two pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page).
(I've been and will probably continue to be, kind of lazy about indicating when the chorus is repeated twice at the end of the song, that sort of thing)
I just deleted one of the worst poems I've done, about the Black Panthers
1. RASH. About Irish anti-racist skinheads.
2. People's Democracy. About People's Democracy, the left-wing/civil rights/anti-partition group in N. Ireland that existed from 1968 until sometime in the 1980s.
3. Spirit of the Streets. Anti-racist skinheads.
4. PIRA. The IRA in N. Ireland.
5. Red Rider. Anti-racist skinheads.
6. Stoop Down Low Party. About how bad the Social Democratic and Labour Party in N. Ireland is.
UPDATE 12/12/10 I just took down a poem about the ANC. The quality annoyed me, AND I'm not sure I have enough knowledge about the ANC's struggle to write a poem about it, even a brief one.
*****
“RASH” based on “One Shot Paddy” by Justice, original lyrics are here.
1. V-E day refers to the day victory was declared in Europe during WWII.
2. the last two lines don’t rhyme in the original, which seems to work for listening to the original, and I’m going to keep it as is, just changing IRA to ARA.
3. Brown is the color of fascism.
4. RASH is Red and Anarchistic SkinHeads.
5. ARA is Anti-Racist Action, a group connected to anti-racist skinheads.
**6. 24% of this version is me, 76% is the original.
7. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
8. I don't know why I kept the first two lines as they were in the original. I would have made more sense if the poem was about Irish SHARPs/RASH (I kind of bumped into (on the web) an Irish SHARP, and when he criticized me for my position on the North, I ripped him a new one). I might change that first verse, one way or the other.
9. I am now changing this poem to being about IRISH RASH, instead of American RASH.
10. AFA is Anti-Fascist Action (Ireland)
In Ireland many years ago or so the legend says
Saint Patrick roamed the hills and glens to drive the snakes away,
But now Ireland has anti-fascist skins- they’re bad news for the brown
Their name is RASH and it’s fash that they will hound!
[chorus]
The fash are getting worried they’ve all gone underground
If the RASH see them they know they’re going down
So the next time that you see the fash with their faces full of fright
Look out for the RASH and make sure that your laces aren’t white
Through the cities of Ireland these gallant heroes roam
They’ll wander through the streets they like to call their home,
And when they find fash they loudly charge forward and attack
It is then that you will hear the crack of bone as the fash are pushed back
Chorus
So if you’re home at night and the newsflash it is read,
The RASH has been at work – another fash bashed in the head
And when it comes time to celebrate V-E day’s cheer,
Remember the RASH and the gallant AFA!
Chorus
****
“People’s Democracy” based on “We Are The Law” ++ RACIST by Kill Baby Kill, original lyrics are here.
1. People’s Democracy was a militant, left-wing, and initially student part of the Civil Rights movement in N. Ireland starting in Oct. 1968 (it later became a political party and then around 1980 declined, and many members joined Sinn Fein and then it adopted another name). There’s more about them here, and the first 1/3 of this. PD doesn’t exist anymore, so this doesn’t violate my rules on publishing songs about actual organizations.
2. The first line is kind of a reference to the ambush at Burntollet.
3. The references to fighting are meant to be about 95% non-violent. I imagine there was some involvement with rioting (especially Devlin's role in the Battle of the Bogside) and there was some support for the IRA, but I think PD were largely about non-violence.
4. Probably something like 50%-60% of PD in 1969 were Marxist.
5. I’m not sure how into Irish pride they were, but I think the vast majority in 1969 identified as Irish and that probably went up to 100% about 2 years later, and I only like to change as much as I need to. Irish pride, most of the time is different than white pride. (I just heard something making me think that it's probably a small minority of northern nationalists that would talk about "Irish pride"; I still feel odd completely re-writing that line, so I'm going to keep it)
6. The Six-Counties is a republican term for N. Ireland.
**7. This version is about 46% me, 54% the original.
8. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
9. PD were very anti-racist and had connections with the Black Panthers.
Rise up all you fallen marchers, rise up and take your stands again.
Let us march for a new tomorrow, let us fight until the day we win
Marching into countless battles, students marching side by side.
Nothing stronger than the troops of Marx, nothing stronger than Irish pride.
Student legions marching for radical change, starting in Oct 1968.
To all of those who cross our path: capitalism and sectarianism we do hate
Never will they take us down, we’re born to fight and so we will.
The Six-Counties are our battleground, for the working-class we’re fighting still.
Chorus:
We are marching on the street.
PD… we take on the elite.
We will win and you know why.
People’s Democracy will never die.
Irish men and women the time has come,
to take down all the Unionist scum.
Our marching days are here now,
to our mighty legions they shall bow.
So listen here, we are socialists,
we keep on fighting Brits and Unionists.
We keep on fighting til sectarianism ends,
to this government we shall never bend
2nd Chorus
We are marching on the street.
PD… we take on the elite.
We will win and you know why.
we’re People’s Democracy and we will never die.
*******
“Spirit of the Streets” based on “We Are the Law” ++RACIST by Kill Baby Kill, original lyrics are here.
1. “Spirit of the streets” is probably more associated with traditional, non-racist skinheads than with anti-racist skinheads (SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice, SHARP) but I’ve seen SHARP youtube videos that included imagery with that phrase.
2. Skinheads have a sense of working-class pride and/or pride in being a skinhead. With the anti-racists, they do represent the best of the skinhead culture.
3. Skinheads wear different colored laces on their boots to indicated their politics or lack thereof.
4. The culture being referred to is the SKINHEAD culture, or subculture, which SHARPs feel is at risk from the Nazi skinheads (also known as boneheads).
5. The reference to workers seems to go a bit beyond how I normally talk about the working-class and anti-racist skinheads (traditionally skinhead is overwhelmingly working-class and probably remains so, or at least mostly so). If it does drift to the left, and only some small majority of anti-racist skinheads are more or less left-wing, that’s fine, I’m a leftist and that's how I'll sometimes write the songs.
6. In various ways, anti-racist skinheads are helpful to those who struggle en masse, even though probably something like 1/3 of anti-racist skinheads don’t really think about that (there’s a spectrum on this, and many are relatively non-political).
**7. This version is 33% me, 67% the original.
8. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
UPDATE 2/1/11 9. As far as helping "those who struggle en mass." A: Although many/most SHARPs don't care about that much, if at all, the fact is that what they do is helpful for people trying to combat racism non-violently; B: I use that rhyme pretty often, because I often forget to try similar words like "last."
Rise up all you fallen fighters, rise up and take your stands again.
Let us fight for a new tomorrow, let us fight until the day we win.
Marching into countless battles, Skinheads marching side by side.
Nothing stronger than the skins of SHARP, nothing stronger than Skinhead pride.
Shaven-headed legions march for freedom, Nazis won’t escape their fate
To all Nazis who cross our path: change your laces before it’s too late
Never will they take us down, we’re born to fight and so we will.
Our streets are our battleground, for the working-class and our culture we’re fighting still.
Chorus:
We are the spirit of the streets
Skinheads… We’re the elite.
We wear our boots and you know why.
SHARP Skinheads will never die.
Workers now the time has come,
to save your class from the scum.
The boneheads’ days are over now,
to our mighty legions they shall bow.
So listen here, this is our town,
we keep on fighting the Nazi clowns
We keep on fighting for the working-class,
fighting to help those who struggle en masse
2nd Chorus
We are the spirit of the streets
Skinheads… We’re the elite.
We wear our boots and you know why.
we’re SHARP Skinheads and we will never die.
*******
“PIRA” based on “CYC” ++LOYALIST by Rab C. original lyrics are here (this is probably the most offensive thing I listen to, it might be upsetting)
1. The original is loyalist. This is about the Provisional IRA.
2. The smell is from the firing of weapons.
3. AK-47s are automatic rifles, RPGs are Rocket Propelled Grenades.
4. Peeler is police. Squaddies are British soldiers.
5. The Warsaw ghetto was one of the few places where there was Jewish resistance to the Holocaust. There’s a great movie about it called “Uprising.” (see this). You might think that this reference is innapropriate, considering that the IRA accepted aid from Nazi Germany and did some things that might have slightly benefited Nazi Germany. I did an entire post about this where I ripped the IRA a new one over it, and went half as far about Irish neutrality during the war. For my post on this, go here.
6. The RUC were, until 2001, the police.
7. The song, including the last line, is not an endorsement of continuing armed struggle past 1997.
8. This is the 3rd song in which I assume that republican paramilitaries wore combat boots. It just worked too well in some ways, and it’s possible some/most/all of them DID wear combat boots. UPDATE 3/11/10: A good source has told me that, yes, sometimes they did, but it was more common in rural areas.
9. The song describes something which probably happened zero or one time the entire conflict, although some things almost as intense probably happened something like five times. I’ve seen video of one gun-fight that was sort of similar.
10. The first two lines don’t rhyme in the original or my version, but in both it seems to work.
**11. 46% of this version is me, 54% is the original. Also I ignored one entire verse that I couldn’t do much with.
12. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
UPDATE 2/1/11 13. As far as triangulating fire, I am almost certain that's something combatants in combat do, although I can only find a small number of web-pages with that phrase. I believe it refers to pinning your opponent down with fire from multiple directions, or something like that.
13. UPDATED 2/8/16 Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.
All told their partners when they got home that,
They didn't know where the smell came from,
They attacked with AKs and RPGs and boots on their feet,
And they forced them all the way back down the street,
Cos they hate the Queen and the House of Lords,
They’re the band that defended the Lower Falls ward
All the peelers were acting like Nazi pricks,
And the Provos triangulated their fire and put them in a fix
It was the maddest thing that you ever did see,
All the young soldiers in D Company
They battled them good and they dealt them a real blow
They fought like the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto
When the Squaddies tried to intervene,
They got it too the best you've ever seen,
The RUC ran away in total retreat,
They left their colleagues behind, littering the street
The crowds all cheered as the Provos marched by,
All the soldiers with their head held high,
They clapped their hands and they stapmed their feet,
Republican Fighters are on the street.
So please love don't be mad with me,
Send my uniform out for a wee dry clean,
And if the peelers break down the door,
Tell 'em Ireland unfree will always be at war.
****
UPDATE 7/27/11 There used to be a poem here about the killing of five communists by the Klan and Nazis in 1979. Apparently there's VERY few anti-racists out there who believe that their deaths should be commemorated. There's also the fact that it had potential to give former friends and potential allies the wrong idea about my beliefs.
****
“Red Rider” based on “White Rider” ++RACIST by Skrewwdriver, original lyrics are here.
1. This is my 3rd song about Red and Anarchistic SkinHeads (RASH) exclsuively, which is kind of over-representing thier numbers among anti-racist skinheads, but A: I’m a leftist and close the political center of RASH, and B: I needed a color, and there’s not much of a color for the rest of the anti-racist skinheads (blue’s close, but doesn’t symbolize them the way that red symbolizes communism).
2. Historically skinheads have been into scooters, and I think that today is much more popular with anti-racist and non-racist skins than it is with Nazis. So, the “rider” part actually makes a lot of sense.
3. I’m tempted to de-sex the reference to fore-fathers, but it’s largely referring to, for example, those who fought fascism in the Spanish civil war or those who fought with the Allies in WWII (at the very least those who were motivated by anti-fascism and fought in the Atlantic/N. Africa/Europe, since we’re not talking about Japanese-imperialist skinheads), so the people I’m referring to would be something like 90% male. UPDATE 3/18/15 I added "fore-mothers."
4. Pride in this version refers to working-class pride.
5. Just like the other anti-fascist version of this song I’ve done, the reference to standing fast is a bit problematic, but works more or less, in this case, better than the other one if you consider that it’s calling on workers to oppose bigotry and fascism in whatever way they feel comfortable but to also support anti-racist skinheads (unless they're pacifists).
6. Just to be clear, that’s all peopleS meaning all cultures.
7. Overwhelmingly, when white supremacists try working within one of the two mjaor parties, it’s the Republican party (there's probably only some small minority of Republican tools who are aligned with the white supremacists, although there's a larger number that flirt with white supremacists) (I do know of at least one case where Nazi skinheads worked the election campaign of a Republican).
8. The culture referred to is the skinhead culture, which anti-racist skinheads feel is under threat from Nazi skinheads.
**9. This version is 23% me, 77% the original.
10. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
You ride through the streets with your head held up high
For the working-class and your culture you're willing to die
Your forefathers and fore-mothers fought and your forefathers fore-mothers died
They died for a feeling they felt deep inside
Chorus
Red rider, red rider, your strength is your pride
red rider, red rider, you'll stand, never hide
red rider, red rider, your boots are your voice
You scorn the conscripted, you're fighting through choice
Your banners are unfolded, carry them with love
To fight for the working-class is a gift from above
Some fools will oppose you, true workers will stand fast
But victory shall be ours for the multi-racial working-class
You feel love for all peoples, disdain for the fools
The enemy's allied with the Republican tools
You fight for the working-class which shall be proud and free
And the only reward that you crave is victory
******
“Stoop Down Low Party” based on “Just Look Around” by Sick Of It All, original lyrics are here.
1. This is set sometime in the early 1990s.
2. Stoops are members of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Sinn Fein’s moderate rival in the nationalist community. See this.
3. FF and FG are Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, the two main parties in the Republic and are right around the center on economics, especially FG, and FF has a history of corruption. They also don’t care about the North as much as they should, especially FG (recently FF started organizing in the North).
4. The Irish Army is often sent overseas on UN Peace-Keeping missions. Although I think that’s great (and I think most republicans would agree), and it’s unsure what republicans would have done if they had had control of it during the conflict, I like the idea of republicans complaining about how the Army is being sent over-seas when there’s a need for it in the North! Volunteers are members of republican paramilitaries.
5. Hoods are young, usually more or less apolitical nationalist youth who engage in behavior that they more or less shouldn’t be- basically criminal, although there’s a spectrum and probably some of it is what a lot teenagers do everywhere- smoking pot for example. Because there was no support for the police, Nationalists would turn to the IRA to deal with crime, and this created a lot of hostility between the IRA and their supporters (“Provos”) on one hand and the hoods on the other hand, especially since, as far as I can tell, some large minority of the time the IRA either went too far or should have done nothing at all.
6. The majority of Provos at that time would have been against homophobia, but I know that some large minority were homophobic.
7. The three groups I chose- Provos, hoods, and gay people, seem like the best substitutes for the chorus, and it pretty much makes sense. To whatever degree the hoods are political, they’re closer to the Provos than the SDLP and we’re talking about working-class Nationalist youth who don’t benefit from the SDLP’s moderate politics. The SDLP back then were also very homophobic.
8. The SDLP is very middle-class and elements of the nationalist middle-class about that time were doing very well.
9. The Lower Falls is a working-class nationalist area where, at that point, SF was getting something like 70% of the vote.
10. Although there were other problems with the education system (it was structurally biased against working-class kids (that’s in the process of being changed, by SF)), I decided to pick on the Catholic Church and their homophobia and moderate, almost pro-British politics.
11. The Dail is the parliament in Dublin, which has basically never shown as much concern about the North as it should.
12. Squaddies are British soldiers, an estate is basically a neighborhood. The hatred is aimed at the British government and the British Army.
**13. This version is 29% me, 71% the original.
14. There are places where the lines don't rhyme in either my version or the original.
15. The line about Irish mankind is off a little bit, but it says Northern Irish (within a couple hours of publishing I added Northern) so it's referring to the Nationalist population, it's pretty accurate, unemployment back then was pretty high for Catholics.
16. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
17. The voice in this poem is militant and sort of pro-IRA. But many of his/her complaints would also be voiced by a lot of SDLP voters and some SDLP members.
UPDATE 2/1/11 18. In the 5th line of the 2nd verse, I just replaced the word "they're" with the word "London's."
The question the stoops keep asking me
how can one so young be so bitter and angry
well, the answer is plain to see
maybe if they weren't so blind they'd see what i see
i see the Brits patrolling on our streets
on every corner they're asking for ID
i start riots whenever I can
but sometimes the Brits just keep driving by
i see the repression and unemployment of Northern Irish mankind
the greed of FF and FG has made them blind
to our problems
Dublin sends battallions overseas,
Volunteers right here are fighting a war everyday
Chorus:
I see the hood that hates the Provo
Provo against the gays, neighbor against neighbor
and they're all too blind to see
When we fight each other it puts the SDLP at ease
it keeps us so busy, so they can do what they please
election time comes and they're out for votes
that's when you see and hear from them the most
The North is what London's calling a democracy
that's just another word for hypocrisy
Nationalist workers keep fallin' for the SDLP’s bait
And when they realize, it's always too late
Chorus
As the stoops get richer, the Lower Falls goin' hungry
i've seen the toll it takes on the workers family
education system that's obsolete
Preaches bigotry and tells kids not to riot in the street
see a father's fear, hear a mother's cry
what kind of a Dail watches our children die
The squaddies raid every single home in the estate
then you're gonna ask me why I hate
Why don't you open up your eyes so you can see
open up your ears so you can hear
take a look around and you will find
take a look around and you will find out why
One last note: Even with the songs that are only about 10% me (and at the upper end, one is 75% me), I have a request, although I don't have strong feelings or expectations about this. First, I want credit for these songs. Second, I'd appreciate it if the notes follow the lyrics around the internet. If you modify the lyrics further, please either make some notes for the changes if you leave some of my changes, or just provide a link to this URL so people can see my version. Although I'm not sure how many people will like what I'm doing with the lyrics, to one degree or another (depending on how much I changed them) I'm proud of these songs- and at the risk of getting a little personal, if people like the songs, I could really use the extra boost of getting credit for them right now (or if you don't like them, they were all written by Sarah Palin- that fascist, what kind of sick person enjoys altering racist lyrics?).
Monday, June 1, 2009
Lyrics!! Lyircs!! Lyrics!!
On one hand this is a new batch of songs, the second I've posted in just a few hours. The first were songs which, with one exception, I had created a week or months ago. This batch are all new. They're from a variety of sources, some involve twisting lyrics (see this for an explanation) those will be ID'd with ++ as a symbol.
For the rest of the poems click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom (there are at least two pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page).
I think that's about it. As usual, I start with the least impressive and end with the most.
1. University of Freedom. The 1981 Irish Republican Hunger-Strike.
2. Stand up and Be Counted (IRA). Guess.
3. Scum of Britain. About Ian Stuart Donaldson, the late leader of the world-wide Nazi skinhead movement.
4. The Great Esacpe. Allied POWs in WWII.
5. Son of America. Martin Luther King, Jr.
6. Soldiarity. The American Left and N. Ireland.
“University of Freedom” based on “Bowels of the Devil” by Body Count (Ice-T's heavy metal band), original lyrics are here.
1. Irish republicans often would refer to the main prison that held many of them, Long Kesh, as the “University of Freedom” becaue they did a lot work educating themselves and eachother in anti-imperialism and (for the majority) left-wing politics.
2. ASU is an Active Servicce Unit. Most of the IRA (it’s not super clear, but I’m pretty sure this was not univeral throughout the organization) adopted a structure where the ASU was the smallest unit. The Company was another, larger unit of the IRA.
3. There are 32 Counties in Ireland.
4. Squaddies is a term for British soldiers.
5. The Falls is a republican area.
6. In the late 1970s the British tried to break the republican family by criminalizing republican prisoners. See this and this (most of the last 1/2 is about the hunger-strike era). The prisoners resisted this effort, culminating in the 1981 Hunger-Strike when 10 men died, Bobby Sands was the first.
7. The Hunger-Strike resulted in the prisoners’ demands being quietly conceded by the government, which meant that the British failed to break them, and although it involved 10 men dying on hunger-strike, it strengthened the struggle. It also involved the incorporation of electoral politics into the republican struggle which greatly strengthened that struggle.
8. It's basically about someone in the prison during the struggle against criminalization, and who is speaking between then and 1997.
9. I eliminated some of the Ice-T stuff (“yo”), but left some of it.
10. I ended up using the word “learns” the way that people say “teaches.”
11. The "North's LAPD" refers to the police, the RUC. I thought it was a nice way of thanking Ice-T for the original lyrics. Also, I've heard that very recently the LAPD has improved, and you could say that even before that change started, the LAPD was not as bad as the RUC.
12. the seperate race line is probably GREATLY exaggerating, especially in terms of how widespread that sentiment is.
**13. 71% of this version is me, 29% is the original.
14. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
15. UPDATED 2/8/16 Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.
16. Is about the IRA, but it's not a bad moment to remind readers that around 80% of the nationalist community supported the hunger-strikers.
17. UPDATE 5/1/17 A "nine" is a gun.
18. UPDATE 6/8/18 The first two lines might sound like I'm calling the British Army the "North's LAPD." I didn't mean that and I think it makes sense to see the first line is about the BA and the second is about the RUC police, but I wanted to make CERTAIN there is no confusion.
Out one night, fighting Brits with my Company
We fight for our people, against the North’s LAPD
Got a nine at my waist
Brits think we’re a seperate race
They fuck with West Belfast right here'll be their resting place.
Some squaddies, they tried to put a move on the Falls
I shot them in the face, but I was captured in the brawl
Then I was in Long Kesh, They wanted us to crawl
they thought they’d break us, but we remained standing tall
Chorus:
University of Freedom,
let me tell you what that muthafucka learns,
its faculty filled with revolutionaries
liberation, socialism, the people’s concerns.
University of Freedom,
listen close, 'cause I've been there before
And those who died there,
They are why we will win this war,
THEY ARE WHY WE WILL WIN THIS WAR!
Aiming the mortars at the British Army base
With the people’s support we’ll get them out of this place,
and my ASU’s down, we don't mess around,
Brits fuck with us, They’ll be six feet underground.
Prison couldn’t break us, we’ll resist to our last breath
Thatcher, that motherfucker, is responsible for Bobby’s death.
That's right, homeboy couldn’t be broken by the bourgeoisie
up there in Freedom’s University.
Chorus
******
++“Stand Up And Be Counted (IRA)” based on “Stand Up And Be Counted” by The Klansmen original lyrics are here.
1. The original is a classic Klan song, but the version I heard is by a side project of Ian Stuart Donaldson of Skrewdriver, a British Nazi skinhead band which was very supportive of the British and loyalist causes in Ireland.
2. Since the original is American racist, I made a point of including certain elements, see this.
3. This is not meant as an endorsement of armed struggle since the IRA’s declaration of a cease-fire in 1997.
4. AK-47s are rifles.
5. The Plough is the Starry Plough, the symbol of republican socialism.
6. The Sunburst is the symbol of the old youth wing of the IRA..
7. Bread is a symbol of economic justice.
8. I went with Tory instead of Brit because A: it involved further twisting, and B: the Tories are a much bigger part of the problem, probably something like 1/3 of Labour are friendly to Sinn Feiin, probably something like 1/3 are okay-good, and probably 1/3 are more or less (less) Unionists.
**9. 47% of this version is me, 53% is the original.
10. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
UPDATE 2/2/11 I just replaced the word "mortar" with the word "Tri-Color" (the flag of Ireland) in the 2nd verse.
11. UPDATED 2/8/16 Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.
Chorus:
Stand up and be counted, we’ll make a stand today
Stand up and be counted, and join the IRA
We are anti-fascists, who love our country too
We always can be counted on, when there's a job to do
We serve our people day and night, and soon they will be free
Proudly wear the mask, fighting for our community.
Chorus
Survival calls for vigilance the symbols of our fight
The Sunburst and Plough, Tri-color and AK, we know we are right
In search for freedom and bread we fight with rifle in hands
We must defeat the Tory to unite our Irish land
Chorus
******
++“Scum of Britian” based on “Son of Britain” by Saga, original lyrics are here.
1. Bonehead is an anti-racist term for Nazi skinhead.
2. Suss seems to mean, in British, smarts or something like that.
3. Ian Stuart was the leader of Skrewdriver, which in the 80s and early 90s was the world’s leading white supremacist skinhead band; he died in a car accident in 1993.
4. Valhalla is part of Norse mythology, it is where warriors go when they die, although there’s some debate about whether or not you have to die in combat. The nazis love Valhalla and are all convinced that Ian Stuart went there, but an anti-Ian Stuart song by the Stage Bottles says that he didn’t because he was killed in a car accident; I’d imagine he was more a musician than a fighter, and then there’s the idea that people who attack others (likely smaller and/or weaker) through bigotry are not eligible for Valhalla; so I’m open-minded about whether or not he’s in Valhalla (that is, if I believed in it, and I sort of pretend to just to have some fun at the expense of the fash, and to make a good point).
5. Musically he was actually very gifted; I don’t believe in Hell.
6. The RA is the Republican Army; Ian Stuart was a supporter of the British and Unionist causes in N. Ireland.
7. The line about Nazis driving is inspired by a professional anti-Ian Stuart song by MDC called "Nazis Shouldn't Drive."
8. You could argue that, like Hitler, he will long be remembered, but I don’t think so.
**9. 66% of this version is me, 34% is the original.
10. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
11. If not for the 2nd to last line I would say there's nothing about anti-racist violence and in my opinion that anti-racist violence would be a small or tiny part of things- small if we're just talking about dealing with Nazi skinheads, tiny if we're looking at the larger picture.
UPDATE 2/2/11 12. When I refer to a nightmare and a greatest enemy, I'm sure I'm kind of exaggerating, ESPECIALLY with the latter. For a large number of individuals, it has been a nightmare. And as far as I can tell, in terms of physical violence, armed or unarmed, they have the potential to do huge amounts of damage.
UPDATE 2/4/20 I just added the word fascist to the second line of the chorus.
From the boneheads of Great Britain, a nightmare came to us.
He brought us hate and terror, The man who had no suss
Ian Stuart has now died, but our hatred for him still lives on.
So it will continue, until all the Nazi hate has gone.
chorus:
Their ranks are filled with boneheads, marching down the street.
They are our greatest fascist enemy since the Axis regimes were beat
Ian Stuart is no longer marching, but nor is he in Valhalla
His music sucks, he’s in Hell, and Up The Irish RA
Ian Stuart's downfall, was that Nazis don’t know how to drive
unfortunately the other nazi bonehead scum they all survived
A messenger of hate, a man who helped us see
That we must always be vigilant against the return of the Nazis
Chorus
When all the Nazi hate is gone, we will soon forget the man,
who weakened the working-class, because he could not understand.
The smashing of his mission is now our destiny -
To democratize our nations, and to set the working-class free.
Chorus
*****
UPDATE 6/11/09 I am renaming songs that had retained the original name.
++"The Great Escape" based on "Men Behind The Wire" by the Thornlie Boys, original lyrics are here (not exactly what I used, but close enough).
1. It's about Allied POWs in WWII. Frustratingly, it's only slightly twisted. The original is N. Ireland loyalist, and they did more or less support and fight in the Allied cause- sometimes, especially when they talk about the IRA and Nazi Germany and/or they're accused of being racist or friendly to British Nazis, you can't shut them up about how they helped defeat Nazi Germany : ). And even worse, it's not specific to a certain organiation, so I can only sort of point to the UDA being friendly with today's Nazis. You could imagine the character is an Irish-American Catholic, for whatever that's worth. As you can tell from the sampling of movies I watch on my profile, I'm really into Allied POW stuff (there's at least two other such movies I like besides "The Great Escape") and this was a good song for that. UPDATE 2/20/20 I just confirmed that the UDA was a majority of the loyalist paramilitary community and learned that the other main group, the UVF had some minor contacts with British fascists (contacts that followed some members who broke off and formed the LVF)) (UPDATE 2/21/20 I changed "cried out "No Pasaran,"" to "said a quick Hail Mary, thought." The Hail Mary prayer is MUCH MUCH more common with Catholics than Protestants, and I doubt more than a tiny minority of members of loyalist paramilitaries were raised to say it and probably stopped saying it as they became incredibly bigoted towards Catholics since Mary is a lot more important to Catholics than Protestants in general)
3. I imagine that only something like half of the American and British forces were motivated by anti-fascism (probably some moderate-sized minority were totally non-political and probably another moderate-sized minority were so conservative and/or anti-semitic and/or racist that they were open-minded about the Nazis maybe being okay), but I like to talk about it that way. As far as being anti-racist, this guy was part of the, let's say some very small minority of White American personnel who could be called anti-racist.
5. I felt like I had to switch two sets of two lines, and thus the second verse is a little awkward in terms of twice referring to "men behind the wire."
6. As far as POWs opposed to anti-semitism, realisticly probably some moderate-sized minority of the Allies. But they were determined to defeat the Nazis, who did hate the Jews.
7. What's that? It's "wierd" that my pro-IRA blog contains songs in favor of the Allies when the IRA accepted aid from Nazi Germany? Read this.
**8. 49% of this version is me, 51% is the original and I switched two sets of two lines, so maybe it's more accurate to say something like 60% me.
9. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
10. UPDATE 10/6/11 I am not sure if "Jerries" is an offensive term (it's not like Germans (in recent decades) have been or are oppressed because they're German); Even if someone says it is offensive, I might leave it considering how that's how some of the Allies spoke at that time.
11. UPDATE 2/27/17 I changed "jerries" to "krauts."
it was a dark and grey november morn as we flew off towards Germany
in a cramped and cold B-29, we were going to bomb the enemy
when the flak got real heavy, we took some hits and went down for a crash
I said a quick Hail Mary, thought "bless FDR and fuck all the racist fash"
We crashed hard but my spirit was unbroken and my heart was still on fire
for soon I knew I would be with the men behind the wire
We were captured by Krauts and interrogated, but our situation was not dire
we were soon allowed to join our brothers, the men behind the wire
There were many faces strange to me, and many more I knew
who were solidly committed to smashing those who hate the Jews
and a love for dear old democracy, even in it's darkest hour
did shine within, these brave men, the men behind the wire
and when this war is over, and our victory is won
let us not forget the sacrifice made by these courageous sons
they were staunch and true, for me and you, so lift your glasses higher
where would we have been, without them, the men behind the wire
*****
++“Son of America” based on “Son of Britain” by Saga, original lyrics are here.
1. It’s about Martin Luther King Jr.
2. The reference about Americans isn’t meant to exclude people, but seemed a bit better than “people” or “humans.” (the original is “comrades” but that wouldn’t go over so well with most people at a MLK march)
3. Dr. King obviously had an impact beyond America, especially in N. Ireland.
4. America could become significantly more democratic, as I discuss in the post "American Democracy" and could happen in a way that could possibly be referred to as something close to a revolution, especially if several changes were made at once.
5. Towards the end of his life, he also addressed the Vietnam War and poverty. Besides his talk about poverty, I’d also say (in connection with the last line) that racism shackles the working-class (obviously it affects middle- and upper-class people, and what I’m thinking of will involve rolling back racism throughout society, but it negatively affects the working-class more).
**6. 42% of this version is me, 58% is the original.
7. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
8. Just non-violence.
9. UPDATE 7/5/16 I changed "Americans" to "people" in the chorus.
From the great city of Montgomery, a leader came to us.
He inspired courage and bravery, in a struggle that’s so just
Dr. King has now fallen, but his memory still lives on.
So it will continue, when all the hate is gone.
Chorus
Our ranks are filled with people, marching down the street.
We are preassuring the enemy, let's force them to retreat!
Dr. King is still marching, walking by our side.
His words are still clear and loud, his spirit spread world-wide!
Dr. King’s weapon, was the message he worked to spread
His spirit fills my backbone, and it will until I’m dead.
A messenger of justice, a man who made us see
eternal laws of equality in his words for you and me.
Chorus
When the new democracy rises, we wont forget the man,
who bravely stood against war, poverty, and the Ku Klux Klan
Fulfilment of his mission is now our destiny
To further democratize our nation, and to set the working-class free
Chorus
****
++“Soldiarity” based on “Napalm In The Morning” by The Klansmen, original lyrics are here.
1. The original is written by Ian Stuart Donaldson for a side band of his, but he was mostly known for his British nazi punk band Skrewdriver and he supported the loyalist paramilitaries.
2. The reference to Vietnamese flags makes more sense than you think. First, it’s part of twisting the lyrics, since the original is pro-America in relation to the Vietnam war and refers to Confederate flags. Second, in general the nationalist community and the republican family supported the Vietnamese resistance. At one point when Free Derry Wall was painted in the colors of the flag of N. Vietnam, Eamonn McCann highlighted that in an article and said that in the late 1960s a lot of the student radicals who were part of the N. Ireland civil rights movement would have had that flag in their rooms. It’s unlikely more than a very tiny minority of those student radicals joined republican paramilitaries, and it’s still not a perfect line, but it’s pretty good.
3. It’s technically off, but the body bags are those of British soldiers.
4. In general, a large part of this song is the soundtrack for one of my earlier posts.
5. The Union Jack is the British flag, that refers to it flying in the Six-Counties of N. Ireland.
6. Although you should read that post, the first line of the last verse refers to the worst of the problem, the leftists in America, the EU, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, (possibly others), who dismissed the oppression of Northern Catholics because of their religion and/or the color of their skin. The word traitor was already there, and kind of works in the sense that they betrayed their committment to supporting oppressed people.
7. I believe that people looked at the number of Catholic civilians killed by the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries and thought that it was small, but didn’t consider that the Catholic population was small and those deaths had a great impact on that community.
8. The Civil Rights marchers refers to Bloody Sunday, when 14 marchers were killed.
9. As I explain elsewhere, the world and specifically the Left failing to do what it should have done varies from country to country based on various criteria, but referring to the all foru directions pretty much makes sense.
10. Bombay St. was one of the main victims of the Aug. 1969 anti-Catholic pogroms which is usually seen as the beginning of the conflict. During a period of 2-3 days in Belfast, 1,505 Catholic families fled their homes (probably something like 18% of Belfast’s Catholic population, probably something like 1.8% of the North’s Catholic population). For more, see this.
11. I’m almost reluctant to post this song. Even though I have improved the post this is based on and am even more convinced than before that there was some kind of serious gap between what the world did and what they should have done, I’m a little uncomfortable rubbing it in with a song. I’m basically saying “Greetings Comrades, care for another kick in the balls?”
**11. 69% of this version is me, 31% is the original.
12. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
13. Besides the part about the global left, this is about the IRA and has little to say that would be repeated by nationalists.
14. UPDATE 1/25/14 I just changed the words "was on" to "begun" in the second line, first verse.
15. UPDATED 2/8/16 Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.
Northern kids in Belfast signed up to fight London
To fight against Orange tyranny an epic war begun
The kids signed up in Derry, south Armagh and Tyrone too
They wouldn’t submit, to the Brits
So they did what they could do
Stand and fight, for what was right
We wouldn't give in to imperialist might
The republican gains, the new day dawning
The Brits will count their dead in the morning
The Northern kids they went to war they took North Vietnamese flags
The rest of the world did nothing while these Volunteers filled body bags
Across the world no one was taking to the streets
A war wasn’t won because of leftists whose politics were weak
The idiots stand, in all our lands
But they will never raise their hands
They want to see a new day dawning
But they don’t care if the Union Jack is flying in the morning
The traitors were idiots and bigots of the political left
They couldn’t figure out the math on all those Catholics’ deaths
The Civil Rights marchers, they'd fallen to British guns
But these idiots, all they could think of were anti-gay priests and nuns
The Left’s very best, North, South, East and west,
Didn’t try to learn, how Bombay St. burned,
unless we end Irish partition
there will continue to be murders sectarian
One last note: Even with the songs that are only about 10% me (and at the upper end, one is 75% me), I have a request, although I don't have strong feelings or expectations about this. First, I want credit for these songs. Second, I'd appreciate it if the notes follow the lyrics around the internet. If you modify the lyrics further, please either make some notes for the changes if you leave some of my changes, or just provide a link to this URL so people can see my version. Although I'm not sure how many people will like what I'm doing with the lyrics, to one degree or another (depending on how much I changed them) I'm proud of these songs- and at the risk of getting a little personal, if people like the songs, I could really use the extra boost of getting credit for them right now (or if you don't like them, they were all written by Sarah Palin- that fascist, what kind of sick person enjoys altering racist lyrics?).
For the rest of the poems click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom (there are at least two pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page).
I think that's about it. As usual, I start with the least impressive and end with the most.
1. University of Freedom. The 1981 Irish Republican Hunger-Strike.
2. Stand up and Be Counted (IRA). Guess.
3. Scum of Britain. About Ian Stuart Donaldson, the late leader of the world-wide Nazi skinhead movement.
4. The Great Esacpe. Allied POWs in WWII.
5. Son of America. Martin Luther King, Jr.
6. Soldiarity. The American Left and N. Ireland.
“University of Freedom” based on “Bowels of the Devil” by Body Count (Ice-T's heavy metal band), original lyrics are here.
1. Irish republicans often would refer to the main prison that held many of them, Long Kesh, as the “University of Freedom” becaue they did a lot work educating themselves and eachother in anti-imperialism and (for the majority) left-wing politics.
2. ASU is an Active Servicce Unit. Most of the IRA (it’s not super clear, but I’m pretty sure this was not univeral throughout the organization) adopted a structure where the ASU was the smallest unit. The Company was another, larger unit of the IRA.
3. There are 32 Counties in Ireland.
4. Squaddies is a term for British soldiers.
5. The Falls is a republican area.
6. In the late 1970s the British tried to break the republican family by criminalizing republican prisoners. See this and this (most of the last 1/2 is about the hunger-strike era). The prisoners resisted this effort, culminating in the 1981 Hunger-Strike when 10 men died, Bobby Sands was the first.
7. The Hunger-Strike resulted in the prisoners’ demands being quietly conceded by the government, which meant that the British failed to break them, and although it involved 10 men dying on hunger-strike, it strengthened the struggle. It also involved the incorporation of electoral politics into the republican struggle which greatly strengthened that struggle.
8. It's basically about someone in the prison during the struggle against criminalization, and who is speaking between then and 1997.
9. I eliminated some of the Ice-T stuff (“yo”), but left some of it.
10. I ended up using the word “learns” the way that people say “teaches.”
11. The "North's LAPD" refers to the police, the RUC. I thought it was a nice way of thanking Ice-T for the original lyrics. Also, I've heard that very recently the LAPD has improved, and you could say that even before that change started, the LAPD was not as bad as the RUC.
12. the seperate race line is probably GREATLY exaggerating, especially in terms of how widespread that sentiment is.
**13. 71% of this version is me, 29% is the original.
14. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
15. UPDATED 2/8/16 Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.
16. Is about the IRA, but it's not a bad moment to remind readers that around 80% of the nationalist community supported the hunger-strikers.
17. UPDATE 5/1/17 A "nine" is a gun.
18. UPDATE 6/8/18 The first two lines might sound like I'm calling the British Army the "North's LAPD." I didn't mean that and I think it makes sense to see the first line is about the BA and the second is about the RUC police, but I wanted to make CERTAIN there is no confusion.
Out one night, fighting Brits with my Company
We fight for our people, against the North’s LAPD
Got a nine at my waist
Brits think we’re a seperate race
They fuck with West Belfast right here'll be their resting place.
Some squaddies, they tried to put a move on the Falls
I shot them in the face, but I was captured in the brawl
Then I was in Long Kesh, They wanted us to crawl
they thought they’d break us, but we remained standing tall
Chorus:
University of Freedom,
let me tell you what that muthafucka learns,
its faculty filled with revolutionaries
liberation, socialism, the people’s concerns.
University of Freedom,
listen close, 'cause I've been there before
And those who died there,
They are why we will win this war,
THEY ARE WHY WE WILL WIN THIS WAR!
Aiming the mortars at the British Army base
With the people’s support we’ll get them out of this place,
and my ASU’s down, we don't mess around,
Brits fuck with us, They’ll be six feet underground.
Prison couldn’t break us, we’ll resist to our last breath
Thatcher, that motherfucker, is responsible for Bobby’s death.
That's right, homeboy couldn’t be broken by the bourgeoisie
up there in Freedom’s University.
Chorus
******
++“Stand Up And Be Counted (IRA)” based on “Stand Up And Be Counted” by The Klansmen original lyrics are here.
1. The original is a classic Klan song, but the version I heard is by a side project of Ian Stuart Donaldson of Skrewdriver, a British Nazi skinhead band which was very supportive of the British and loyalist causes in Ireland.
2. Since the original is American racist, I made a point of including certain elements, see this.
3. This is not meant as an endorsement of armed struggle since the IRA’s declaration of a cease-fire in 1997.
4. AK-47s are rifles.
5. The Plough is the Starry Plough, the symbol of republican socialism.
6. The Sunburst is the symbol of the old youth wing of the IRA..
7. Bread is a symbol of economic justice.
8. I went with Tory instead of Brit because A: it involved further twisting, and B: the Tories are a much bigger part of the problem, probably something like 1/3 of Labour are friendly to Sinn Feiin, probably something like 1/3 are okay-good, and probably 1/3 are more or less (less) Unionists.
**9. 47% of this version is me, 53% is the original.
10. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
UPDATE 2/2/11 I just replaced the word "mortar" with the word "Tri-Color" (the flag of Ireland) in the 2nd verse.
11. UPDATED 2/8/16 Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.
Chorus:
Stand up and be counted, we’ll make a stand today
Stand up and be counted, and join the IRA
We are anti-fascists, who love our country too
We always can be counted on, when there's a job to do
We serve our people day and night, and soon they will be free
Proudly wear the mask, fighting for our community.
Chorus
Survival calls for vigilance the symbols of our fight
The Sunburst and Plough, Tri-color and AK, we know we are right
In search for freedom and bread we fight with rifle in hands
We must defeat the Tory to unite our Irish land
Chorus
******
++“Scum of Britian” based on “Son of Britain” by Saga, original lyrics are here.
1. Bonehead is an anti-racist term for Nazi skinhead.
2. Suss seems to mean, in British, smarts or something like that.
3. Ian Stuart was the leader of Skrewdriver, which in the 80s and early 90s was the world’s leading white supremacist skinhead band; he died in a car accident in 1993.
4. Valhalla is part of Norse mythology, it is where warriors go when they die, although there’s some debate about whether or not you have to die in combat. The nazis love Valhalla and are all convinced that Ian Stuart went there, but an anti-Ian Stuart song by the Stage Bottles says that he didn’t because he was killed in a car accident; I’d imagine he was more a musician than a fighter, and then there’s the idea that people who attack others (likely smaller and/or weaker) through bigotry are not eligible for Valhalla; so I’m open-minded about whether or not he’s in Valhalla (that is, if I believed in it, and I sort of pretend to just to have some fun at the expense of the fash, and to make a good point).
5. Musically he was actually very gifted; I don’t believe in Hell.
6. The RA is the Republican Army; Ian Stuart was a supporter of the British and Unionist causes in N. Ireland.
7. The line about Nazis driving is inspired by a professional anti-Ian Stuart song by MDC called "Nazis Shouldn't Drive."
8. You could argue that, like Hitler, he will long be remembered, but I don’t think so.
**9. 66% of this version is me, 34% is the original.
10. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
11. If not for the 2nd to last line I would say there's nothing about anti-racist violence and in my opinion that anti-racist violence would be a small or tiny part of things- small if we're just talking about dealing with Nazi skinheads, tiny if we're looking at the larger picture.
UPDATE 2/2/11 12. When I refer to a nightmare and a greatest enemy, I'm sure I'm kind of exaggerating, ESPECIALLY with the latter. For a large number of individuals, it has been a nightmare. And as far as I can tell, in terms of physical violence, armed or unarmed, they have the potential to do huge amounts of damage.
UPDATE 2/4/20 I just added the word fascist to the second line of the chorus.
From the boneheads of Great Britain, a nightmare came to us.
He brought us hate and terror, The man who had no suss
Ian Stuart has now died, but our hatred for him still lives on.
So it will continue, until all the Nazi hate has gone.
chorus:
Their ranks are filled with boneheads, marching down the street.
They are our greatest fascist enemy since the Axis regimes were beat
Ian Stuart is no longer marching, but nor is he in Valhalla
His music sucks, he’s in Hell, and Up The Irish RA
Ian Stuart's downfall, was that Nazis don’t know how to drive
unfortunately the other nazi bonehead scum they all survived
A messenger of hate, a man who helped us see
That we must always be vigilant against the return of the Nazis
Chorus
When all the Nazi hate is gone, we will soon forget the man,
who weakened the working-class, because he could not understand.
The smashing of his mission is now our destiny -
To democratize our nations, and to set the working-class free.
Chorus
*****
UPDATE 6/11/09 I am renaming songs that had retained the original name.
++"The Great Escape" based on "Men Behind The Wire" by the Thornlie Boys, original lyrics are here (not exactly what I used, but close enough).
1. It's about Allied POWs in WWII. Frustratingly, it's only slightly twisted. The original is N. Ireland loyalist, and they did more or less support and fight in the Allied cause- sometimes, especially when they talk about the IRA and Nazi Germany and/or they're accused of being racist or friendly to British Nazis, you can't shut them up about how they helped defeat Nazi Germany : ). And even worse, it's not specific to a certain organiation, so I can only sort of point to the UDA being friendly with today's Nazis. You could imagine the character is an Irish-American Catholic, for whatever that's worth. As you can tell from the sampling of movies I watch on my profile, I'm really into Allied POW stuff (there's at least two other such movies I like besides "The Great Escape") and this was a good song for that. UPDATE 2/20/20 I just confirmed that the UDA was a majority of the loyalist paramilitary community and learned that the other main group, the UVF had some minor contacts with British fascists (contacts that followed some members who broke off and formed the LVF)) (UPDATE 2/21/20 I changed "cried out "No Pasaran,"" to "said a quick Hail Mary, thought." The Hail Mary prayer is MUCH MUCH more common with Catholics than Protestants, and I doubt more than a tiny minority of members of loyalist paramilitaries were raised to say it and probably stopped saying it as they became incredibly bigoted towards Catholics since Mary is a lot more important to Catholics than Protestants in general)
3. I imagine that only something like half of the American and British forces were motivated by anti-fascism (probably some moderate-sized minority were totally non-political and probably another moderate-sized minority were so conservative and/or anti-semitic and/or racist that they were open-minded about the Nazis maybe being okay), but I like to talk about it that way. As far as being anti-racist, this guy was part of the, let's say some very small minority of White American personnel who could be called anti-racist.
5. I felt like I had to switch two sets of two lines, and thus the second verse is a little awkward in terms of twice referring to "men behind the wire."
6. As far as POWs opposed to anti-semitism, realisticly probably some moderate-sized minority of the Allies. But they were determined to defeat the Nazis, who did hate the Jews.
7. What's that? It's "wierd" that my pro-IRA blog contains songs in favor of the Allies when the IRA accepted aid from Nazi Germany? Read this.
**8. 49% of this version is me, 51% is the original and I switched two sets of two lines, so maybe it's more accurate to say something like 60% me.
9. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
10. UPDATE 10/6/11 I am not sure if "Jerries" is an offensive term (it's not like Germans (in recent decades) have been or are oppressed because they're German); Even if someone says it is offensive, I might leave it considering how that's how some of the Allies spoke at that time.
11. UPDATE 2/27/17 I changed "jerries" to "krauts."
it was a dark and grey november morn as we flew off towards Germany
in a cramped and cold B-29, we were going to bomb the enemy
when the flak got real heavy, we took some hits and went down for a crash
I said a quick Hail Mary, thought "bless FDR and fuck all the racist fash"
We crashed hard but my spirit was unbroken and my heart was still on fire
for soon I knew I would be with the men behind the wire
We were captured by Krauts and interrogated, but our situation was not dire
we were soon allowed to join our brothers, the men behind the wire
There were many faces strange to me, and many more I knew
who were solidly committed to smashing those who hate the Jews
and a love for dear old democracy, even in it's darkest hour
did shine within, these brave men, the men behind the wire
and when this war is over, and our victory is won
let us not forget the sacrifice made by these courageous sons
they were staunch and true, for me and you, so lift your glasses higher
where would we have been, without them, the men behind the wire
*****
++“Son of America” based on “Son of Britain” by Saga, original lyrics are here.
1. It’s about Martin Luther King Jr.
2. The reference about Americans isn’t meant to exclude people, but seemed a bit better than “people” or “humans.” (the original is “comrades” but that wouldn’t go over so well with most people at a MLK march)
3. Dr. King obviously had an impact beyond America, especially in N. Ireland.
4. America could become significantly more democratic, as I discuss in the post "American Democracy" and could happen in a way that could possibly be referred to as something close to a revolution, especially if several changes were made at once.
5. Towards the end of his life, he also addressed the Vietnam War and poverty. Besides his talk about poverty, I’d also say (in connection with the last line) that racism shackles the working-class (obviously it affects middle- and upper-class people, and what I’m thinking of will involve rolling back racism throughout society, but it negatively affects the working-class more).
**6. 42% of this version is me, 58% is the original.
7. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
8. Just non-violence.
9. UPDATE 7/5/16 I changed "Americans" to "people" in the chorus.
From the great city of Montgomery, a leader came to us.
He inspired courage and bravery, in a struggle that’s so just
Dr. King has now fallen, but his memory still lives on.
So it will continue, when all the hate is gone.
Chorus
Our ranks are filled with people, marching down the street.
We are preassuring the enemy, let's force them to retreat!
Dr. King is still marching, walking by our side.
His words are still clear and loud, his spirit spread world-wide!
Dr. King’s weapon, was the message he worked to spread
His spirit fills my backbone, and it will until I’m dead.
A messenger of justice, a man who made us see
eternal laws of equality in his words for you and me.
Chorus
When the new democracy rises, we wont forget the man,
who bravely stood against war, poverty, and the Ku Klux Klan
Fulfilment of his mission is now our destiny
To further democratize our nation, and to set the working-class free
Chorus
****
++“Soldiarity” based on “Napalm In The Morning” by The Klansmen, original lyrics are here.
1. The original is written by Ian Stuart Donaldson for a side band of his, but he was mostly known for his British nazi punk band Skrewdriver and he supported the loyalist paramilitaries.
2. The reference to Vietnamese flags makes more sense than you think. First, it’s part of twisting the lyrics, since the original is pro-America in relation to the Vietnam war and refers to Confederate flags. Second, in general the nationalist community and the republican family supported the Vietnamese resistance. At one point when Free Derry Wall was painted in the colors of the flag of N. Vietnam, Eamonn McCann highlighted that in an article and said that in the late 1960s a lot of the student radicals who were part of the N. Ireland civil rights movement would have had that flag in their rooms. It’s unlikely more than a very tiny minority of those student radicals joined republican paramilitaries, and it’s still not a perfect line, but it’s pretty good.
3. It’s technically off, but the body bags are those of British soldiers.
4. In general, a large part of this song is the soundtrack for one of my earlier posts.
5. The Union Jack is the British flag, that refers to it flying in the Six-Counties of N. Ireland.
6. Although you should read that post, the first line of the last verse refers to the worst of the problem, the leftists in America, the EU, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, (possibly others), who dismissed the oppression of Northern Catholics because of their religion and/or the color of their skin. The word traitor was already there, and kind of works in the sense that they betrayed their committment to supporting oppressed people.
7. I believe that people looked at the number of Catholic civilians killed by the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries and thought that it was small, but didn’t consider that the Catholic population was small and those deaths had a great impact on that community.
8. The Civil Rights marchers refers to Bloody Sunday, when 14 marchers were killed.
9. As I explain elsewhere, the world and specifically the Left failing to do what it should have done varies from country to country based on various criteria, but referring to the all foru directions pretty much makes sense.
10. Bombay St. was one of the main victims of the Aug. 1969 anti-Catholic pogroms which is usually seen as the beginning of the conflict. During a period of 2-3 days in Belfast, 1,505 Catholic families fled their homes (probably something like 18% of Belfast’s Catholic population, probably something like 1.8% of the North’s Catholic population). For more, see this.
11. I’m almost reluctant to post this song. Even though I have improved the post this is based on and am even more convinced than before that there was some kind of serious gap between what the world did and what they should have done, I’m a little uncomfortable rubbing it in with a song. I’m basically saying “Greetings Comrades, care for another kick in the balls?”
**11. 69% of this version is me, 31% is the original.
12. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
13. Besides the part about the global left, this is about the IRA and has little to say that would be repeated by nationalists.
14. UPDATE 1/25/14 I just changed the words "was on" to "begun" in the second line, first verse.
15. UPDATED 2/8/16 Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.
Northern kids in Belfast signed up to fight London
To fight against Orange tyranny an epic war begun
The kids signed up in Derry, south Armagh and Tyrone too
They wouldn’t submit, to the Brits
So they did what they could do
Stand and fight, for what was right
We wouldn't give in to imperialist might
The republican gains, the new day dawning
The Brits will count their dead in the morning
The Northern kids they went to war they took North Vietnamese flags
The rest of the world did nothing while these Volunteers filled body bags
Across the world no one was taking to the streets
A war wasn’t won because of leftists whose politics were weak
The idiots stand, in all our lands
But they will never raise their hands
They want to see a new day dawning
But they don’t care if the Union Jack is flying in the morning
The traitors were idiots and bigots of the political left
They couldn’t figure out the math on all those Catholics’ deaths
The Civil Rights marchers, they'd fallen to British guns
But these idiots, all they could think of were anti-gay priests and nuns
The Left’s very best, North, South, East and west,
Didn’t try to learn, how Bombay St. burned,
unless we end Irish partition
there will continue to be murders sectarian
One last note: Even with the songs that are only about 10% me (and at the upper end, one is 75% me), I have a request, although I don't have strong feelings or expectations about this. First, I want credit for these songs. Second, I'd appreciate it if the notes follow the lyrics around the internet. If you modify the lyrics further, please either make some notes for the changes if you leave some of my changes, or just provide a link to this URL so people can see my version. Although I'm not sure how many people will like what I'm doing with the lyrics, to one degree or another (depending on how much I changed them) I'm proud of these songs- and at the risk of getting a little personal, if people like the songs, I could really use the extra boost of getting credit for them right now (or if you don't like them, they were all written by Sarah Palin- that fascist, what kind of sick person enjoys altering racist lyrics?).
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Skinhead!! SHARP!!
(the title is taken from the title of a YouTube video I found and for some reason I decided that I liked it)
(The intro to this was re-typed and republished in Feb. 2020)
(SHARP is SkinHead Against Racial Prejudice)
As you know, I alter lyrics of songs I listen to and and post them. About half the ones below are based on stuff I politically despise, that's explained here.
There's some extra things I have to explain with this post. First, these are my poems about anti-racist skinheads. At some point I might do a post explaining why I believe them fighting Nazi skinheads is helpful to the anti-racist cause (including making it less likely Nazis will attack innocent people), but the legal stuff with that is iffy (if you want, email me and I'll email that to you). And although I focus in the poems largely on the violence, a lot of what anti-racist skinheads do that decrease the flow of recruits to Nazi skinhead groups is non-violent.
Also, I should point out that a HUGE part of this web-site is aimed at improving our anti-hate work and doing other things that will decrease the flow of recruits to Nazi skinhead organizations (although I haven’t read hardly anything on the web-site of the Southern Poverty Law Center for about 5 years, I get the impression that there may be fewer Nazi SKINHEADS today than there were 5 years ago, but when I first wrote this I had reason to believe they were still a serious part of the problem).
This will be the second post where I include stuff based on N. Ireland loyalist music which I also listen to (three of the poems below are based on it). Although I could point to the fact that I'm Catholic and Irish-American (which partly closes the gap between saying I shouldn't use those songs and saying I can do whatever I want with them), it can't hurt if I also remind people that I've done a lot to fight what that music stands for.
I have a small amount of knowledge about skinheads that is drawn from talking with them, and I have a lot from reading good sources, a lot of common sense, and 100% of what I have written in the notes and lyrics has gone uncritisized by a SHARP I know and an anti-fascist militant I know. The main thing is that I know that SHARPs are helpful to the anti-racist cause, and the odds are pretty good that I got the details about skinheads right.
Lastly, as far as i can tell, only some large minority of anti-racist skins can be considered solidly left-wing or progressive, probably a small majority in America would vote Republican (that's a rough, educated estimate) and many are sort of or very non-political. And probably most are very patriotic. THE POINT is that I'm not trying to give a slightly innacurate impression through my lyrics of the politics of anti-racist skins, but probably a small majority are more or less as left-wing as I am, and the fact is that I'm going to write these songs more or less as a leftist.
Also, some anti-racist skinheads identify as such just so that fewer people will think they're racist. These poems are certainly about those who go beyond that.
Since I originally wrote these poems, I have learned that what this or that color of laces means is even more confused than I thought. In general, white is fash, black is neutral, and non-black colored laces are anti-racist, but there are plenty of exceptions.
I also believe that even though they're skinheads, they're probably in some ways less violent than the Nazis. Fascism celebrates violence. And even though their numbers are small I would still ask, how often do you hear of anti-racist skinheads attacking innocent people? And they are anti-racist skinheads partly because they are worried about the image of skinhead, which I think makes it likely they are less likely to attack innocent people.
Lastly, I should address my frequent references to the working-class. Although there are probably some exceptions, skinheads in general are working-class and even when it’s warped by fascism, they have a strong sense of working-class pride. As far as the anti-racist ones, I’m not saying they’re at the heart of the working-class or represent more than some absolutely tiny percentage of that class or that they will play a central role in defeating fascism (I even wouldn’t be surprised if their numbers are fewer today than they were in the past). But I like to talk about what they are fighting for the way I do in the poems below.
Here and there I say that a "crew" is a skinhead gang. But, with the exception of the Nazis, it doesn't mean what you think.
I'm going to start with the least impressive and end with the most. I'll indicate which are based on racist, republican, loyalist or other stuff.
For the rest of the poems click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom (there are at least two pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page). The rest of the SHARP poems are found, along with some other poems, here. There are three poems about Ian Stuart Donaldson here. Although it's partly a republican thing about N. Ireland, there is an anti-fascist video I found on YouTube and after I got permission from the person who created it, I uploaded it to my blog. It's pretty funny if you are anti-fascist and even remotely pro-IRA.
"Nazi Scum" based on "S.H.A.R.P. Scum" (RACIST) by Vinland Warriors, original lyrics are here.
1. The original says "back" instead of "black" but it almost sounds like "black" which is hilarious. Also, in 1998 in Las Vegas, two SHARPs (Lin Newborn, 25, and Dan Shersty, 21), were killed by Nazis, one of them was black, so I decided to do the lyrics this way and dedicate the song to the Black anti-racist skinheads.
2. Although I believe people should beat the shit out of them, and I can make an exception for this next part, I actually am more or less against people killing them.
3. There's an argument, that I believe, that the Nazi skinheads are not really skinheads, they usurped the skinhead identity. This is based on the idea that since the skinhead sub-culture was started in connection with Jamaicans, if you're a racist you can't be a skinhead.
**4. 6% of this version is me, 94% is the original.
5. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
6. Like many of my songs, I am writing with someone else voice. That's certainly the case here.
7. Based on some things I've learned, I believe black skinheads probably have some kind of black pride. In a SHARP youtube video, at the beginning, it says "pride without prejudice."
You take our style and our streets
We are skinheads, we're the elites
Get out of our way, we're coming for you
believe me that the talk is true
Chorus:
Nazi scum
You fucking scum
Nazi scum
Your time will come
Nazi scum
You're under attack
Class pride
We're proud to be black
We're gonna put all of you down
We'll put you six feet underground
You're gonna fall one by one
Now pay the price you fucking scum
Chorus
This war has just begun
We're coming for you with loaded guns
I want to put a bullet in your head
Put you in a coffin before you're dead
******
"Jan Kucera" based on "Billy Reid" (REPUBLICAN) author unknown, lyrics are here.
1. Jan Kucera was a Czech SkinHead Against Racial Prejudice killed by Nazis in early 2008. See this. Also, I found two commemoration videos (actually, there's others, but these are my favorites) here, and here (this one shows security camera footage of the incident, might be upsetting).
2. It's not likely the flags all flew at half mast, but they should have, and the best option seemed to be to leave it that way.
3. It's not clear, but I got the impression somewhere that the stabbing was in an apartment building, possibly Jan's. The impression I got was that the Nazis followed the anti-fascists from the pub and attacked again.
**5. 32% of this version is me, 68% is the original (that includes 100% of a new verse, where I twice altered the second-to-last verse of the original).
6. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
7. Bonehead is an anti-racist term for Nazi Skinheads.
I'll sing you a song, of a terrible wrong,
When the flags all flew at half-mast
A man he lay dead, he was killed by boneheads,
And he died because he stood fast
chorus:
And the radio said, a skin was stabbed dead
And he died an antifascist to the last
But they never said why, Jan Kucera had to die
Well he died for the working-class
It happened in 2008, when boneheads full of hate
Set out to start a pub fight
Dumb as the KKK, they thought the SHARPs would run away
But the SHARPs knew they were right
Chorus
Back at his place, returned the Aryan race
And when the fight had begun
His position was dire, but his spirit never tired
His courage was second to no one's
chorus
Allthough the fash had a knife, Jan readily risked his life
His fists flew and they flew and they flew
But the fash stabbed with the blade, and then ran away
And Jan lay dying surrounded by his friends and his crew.
chorus
And when he was dead, all remembered for what he had bled
The casket, 400 friends and family did surround
And the fash still fear him yet, and they'll never forget,
How brave Jan Kucera stood his ground.
Chorus
If you think he was right, come join in the fight,
And help to protect the working-class
For although he is dead, we remember for what he bled
And in our minds his memory will last.
Chorus
******
“Stand Up And Be Counted SHARPs/RASH” based on “Stand Up And Be Counted” (RACIST) by the Klansmen, original lyrics are here.
1. The original is a classic Ku Klux Klan song.
2. SHARP is SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice, RASH is Red and Anarchist SkinHeads.
3. Doc Martens are boots worn by something like 99% of skinheads.
4. Three Arrows is an anti-fascist symbol (that’s what I call it). Braces are suspenders.
5. Bonehead is an anti-racist term for Nazi Skinhead.
**86. 44% of this version is me, 56% is the original.
7. I give this song/poem two stars out of five.
8. My thoughts about American democracy are here.
Chorus:
Stand up and be counted, help us stop the fash
Stand up and be counted, join the SHARPs or the RASH
We are anti-racists, who love the working-class too
We always can be counted on, when there's a job to do
We serve the working-class day and night, to keep it always free
Proudly wear our Doc Martens, protecting liberty.
Chorus
Survival calls for vigilance the symbols of our scene
Baseball bats and Three arrows, boots and braces, we’re anti-fash machines
Against hate and fascism we fight the fash hand to hand
We must defeat the boneheads to save our democratic land
Chorus
******
This song is based on "Skinhead Boy" by Prussian Blue (RACIST).
Here are some notes:
1) Towards the begginning, even though I'm not a sociologist, I feel comfortable saying that "race" is something we should stand up against.
2) I changed the color of laces from WHITE to BLUE (in my experience, blue stood for anti-racism).
3) "Pride." We know what kind of fucked up pride they mean, but skinheads also have a sense of working-class pride, so in this version it refers to that.
Unfortunately for me (depending on the circumstances in which I sing it) the original was written by two teenage girls who adore nazi skinheads. No matter what version I sing, I'm skipping the chorus for various reasons (the chorus, bearing in mind that "oi!" is a skinhead phrase, is "oi, oi, oi Skinhead boy, you're my oi boy"). Although under certain circumstances I'd be willing to sing the anti-racist version of "Skinhead BOY" (there's two lines I'm comfortable singing, but the chorus, at least the vast majority of the time I imagine singing it for people, it would not be appropriate) below are the anti-racist lyrics for "Skinhead GIRL." (a Chelsea is a skinhead girl haircut) The original lyrics can be found here (they get one line wrong- instead of "come inside give us a view" it should be "comrades like you are so few").
**2% of this version is me, 98% is the original (excluding sex changes).
I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
UPDATE 11/30/09 I'm tempted to change the 3rd and fourth lines to: Skinhead girl, courage unsurpassed/ Standing up proud for the working-class. Let me know what you think in comments or by email.
UPDATE 1/20/20 I just made that change.
"Skinhead Girl"
Skinhead girl, standing fast
Not afraid to kick some ass
Skinhead girl, courage unsurpassed
Standing up proud for the working-class
Skinhead girl, skinhead woman, please stay true to our plan
Skinhead girl, skinhead woman, some day you will save our land
Skinhead girl with the boots and braces
Your boots tied with bright blue laces
Chelsea hair and eyes so blue
Comrades like you are so few
Skinheads are my favorites
They're the real patriots
They have honor, they have pride
They have courage deep inside
****
"Get Out Nazi Boneheads" based "go On Home British Soldiers" (REPUBLICAN) by South Dublin Union (performed by lots of groups), original lyrics are here.
1. Bonehead is an ant-racist term for nazi skinhead.
2. The idea, quite credible, is that the nazis aren't real skinheads and don't understand what it's about. The idea is that the Nazi skinheads are not really skinheads, they usurped the skinhead identity. This is based on the idea that since the skinhead sub-culture was started in connection with Jamaicans, if you're a racist you can't be a skinhead.
3. Although there were explicitly anti-fascist skinheads before this, they got more explicit in 1987 by using the term "SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice."
4. I'm sure they're willing to keep fighting for as long as neccessary, but I decided to go with the original (which says 800). Besides, it gives the rest of the anti-fascist/hate movement incentive to make some progress, we'll only have our skin allies for 22 more years! : )
5. The ARA is anti-racist action, a group aligned with anti-racist skins which the nazis like roughly as much as they like SHARP (in hindsight I'm not sure I really HAD to refer to the ARA, but apparently when I was altering that line ARA worked best; I appologize if the ARA is offended).
6. In 1998 two anti-racist skins were killed by Nazis in Las Vegas, NV. They were Lin Newborn, 25, and Dan Shersty, 21.
7. I imagine that after making some effort to prove they've changed, nazis are welcome to join SHARPs, probably with some exceptions. I've heard of one who became a nazi because his dad was telling him what to do, but then the Klan started telling him what to do, so he became a SHARP.
8. Psychotic might not be the best word for what I was thinking, but makes more sense than "violent."
9. the red, white, and black are the colors of the nazi flag.
**10. 55% of this version is me, 45% is the original.
11. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
12. When I refer to the working-class united, that's not as weird as you might think. I can't remember the details but in a class on African-American history, I learned that sometime in the 1700s in America there were rebellions by the lower classes and that these were very diverse. In response, the upper-classes started talking up white supremacy as a way to divide and weaken the lower classes.
Chorus:
Get out Nazi boneheads, get the fuck out
Have you any fucking idea what Skinhead is all about?
for twenty-two years, we've fought you without fear
and we will fight you for twenty-two more.
If you stay, Nazi boneheads, if you stay
you'll never ever beat us or the ARA
the brothers in 1998, will be the last before we end your hate
so take a tip and join us while you may.
Chorus
skinhead's not fascist, it's not hateful it's not psychotic
It's working-class! and proud we are to be
so fuck your red, white, and black, we want our scene back
we want to see the working-class united once more.
Chorus
Well we're fighting nazi boneheads for the cause
we'll never bow to the fash because
throughout our history, everyone was born to be free
so get out Nazi boneheads leave us be.
Chorus
*****
"Jane Hawkins," based on "Joe Hawkins" (originally non-political skinhead song, now SHARP) by The Oppressed, original lyrics here.
1. To be honest, when I first read the lyrics for the original, I hated it. Mostly because of the anti-hippie stuff. I'm not in love with them, but as a socialist, I figure about half of them are my allies, and skinhead hostility towards hippies is, at best, stupid. And I have reason to believe there has actually been some harrassment-violence towards hippies. But then I watched the video (I think it might be official instead of fan-made), for some reason I can't figure (I'm pretty sure most of the skinheads in the video were non-political; if they're anti-racist, I like it even more), I really liked it, and I certainly like the music, and as far as their anti-fascist/left-wing stuff, I love The Oppressed.
2. I started changing it simply by switching it from male to female- I don't know how I got that idea, but considering the final result, I'm glad I did.
3. Bonehead is an anti-racist term for nazi skinheads.
4. Chelsea is a skinhead girl hair-cut.
5. Roddy Moreno is/was the leader of The Oppressed, and spread the message of SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice from America to Europe, and probably had some affect on the growth of SHARP elsewhere.
6. Suss, I think basically refers to smarts.
7. I left out the third line of the Chorus- "she cares about you" just sounds lame.
8. If there actually was a real Joe Hawkins, that makes it a little awkward, but odds are there wasn't.
**9. 15% of this song is me, 85% is the original (I didn't count sex changes).
10. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
See her walking down the street
Doctor Martens on her feet
Levi Jeans, Ben Sherman shirt
Nazis fuck with her, they'll get hurt
Chorus:
She's a skinhead, and she cares
Marten boots and Chelsea hair
Walking down on the Brighton pier
Nazi boneheads filled with fear
Crunch of bone as the boot goes in
Jane's so proud to be a skin
Chorus
Roddy Moreno changed her ways
Now she's SHARP, she's her to stay
So if you think you've got the suss
Be a SHARP, be like us
Chorus
She's a Queen, Queen of the skins
What's her name, Jane Hawkins
******
"Skins of the RASH" based on "Men of the UDA" (LOYALIST) by the Thornlie Boys (wouldn't surprise me if the lyrics are originally by someone else, with loyalist and republican stuff the author is often unclear/unknown) (can't find original lyrics on internet, see this)
1. RASH is Red and Anarchist SkinHeads.
2. Orange County CA seems to have more than it's fair share of Nazi skinheads (that sounds wierd, like there should be a more equal distribution- I'd like to see more in Valhalla or Hell (preferabbly Hell, I'm not sure if people who gang up on (likely) weaker people because of bigotry deserve Valhalla (actually, I'm against killing them, for various reasons, and am mostly against permanently injurying them)).
3. I'm not sure if Nazi skinheads (boneheads) are disproportionately found in the former Confederacy, but it seemed like the best substitute.
4. "No Pasaran" is a slogan from the anti-fascist side of the Spanish Civil War, it means "They Shall Not Pass."
5. All/most RASH wear red-laces, although a lot of Nazi skinheads also wear red laces.
6. The original is about the Ulster Defense Association, which has, to one degree or another been connected to British Nazis. So, this song is not one where I have not twisted the original lyrics into the exact opposite of what they were intended, but there is still great conflict between my poem and the original.
**6. 50% of this version is me, 50% is the original.
7. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
in a dear little country they call America I joined with the skins of the RASH
and I was trained in combat with my comrades to defeat the fucking fash
now we'll go on down into Orange County, we'll go into the Confederacy
to seek out and fight the boneheads, and knock those fash down to their knees
Chorus:
"No Pasaran" is our motto, and this is why we fight the fascist threat
For none shall ever seperate the brothers and sisters of the Proletariat
our members, they're some of the bravest since the 1945 push for Berlin
and that is why they volunteer to join with the red-laced skins
you know they're all over America, and in this anti-fascist war they'll prevail
and when the working-class she calls on them, their courage it never fails
chorus
******
"Three Arrows" based on "Orange Wings" (LOYALIST) (multiple versions, can't find the right one, but a similar version is here)
1. Three arrows is an anti-fascist symbol; I'm certain of that, but besides that I know nothing of this symbol.
2. I wouldn't say they're America's best, non-violent anti-racists are even more important.
3. part "...before it's too late/We're gonna end, this fascist hate" is more or less borrowed from "Nazi Nightmare" by The Oppressed.
4. OC refers to Orange County, CA, where there's a LOT of Nazi skinheads.
5. I don't expect the ANC to endorse American anti-racist skinheads, but I don't think they'll complain about this either (it's clearly referring to the military wing, it's not referring to the organization in government, or the faction that broke off, but the military wing which doesn't even exist anymore).
6. It'd be nice if there were 10,000 anti-racist skinheads in America, there's probably closer to 3,000. Maybe if my arguements in favor of them get out there more, there'll be more.
7. obviously, I mean former Confederacy, although I'm not sure if Nazi skinheads are more common there than in PA or IN for example.
8. Bonehead is an anti-racist term for Nazi skinhead.
9. White laces are worn by Nazi skinheads on their boots (in America, if they're nazis and they wear red laces, that usually means they at least tried to kill someone).
10. I'm certain they don't pass on their boots, but it made the most sense, and rhymed. I'm not sure if Nazi skinheads are the grass-roots, but it's close to accurate.
UPDATE 2/2/11 I just realized that "bats," "Docs," (docs are boots) might have been better. Sometime soon I will look at the rhymes available with those words.
11. The original is about the UDA, a loyalist paramilitary with more or less strong ties to British Nazi organizations, so this is twisted.
**11. 56% of this version is me, 44% is the original.
12. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
Three arrows, upon my breast
For we are anti-racists, America's best
10,000 of us will fight before it's too late
We're gonna end, this fascist hate
And when we go into the OC
Just like the soldiers of the ANC
10,000 of us will fight before it's too late
We're gonna end, this fascist hate
Three arrows, upon my breast
For we are anti-racists, America's best
10,000 of us will fight before it's too late
We're gonna end, this fascist hate
And when we go, into the Confederacy
The boneheads, will be brought down to their knees
The scum in white laces, we will smash their faces
We are skinheads, of all races
So when we're dead, we're in our graves
No fancy tombstones, shall we crave
Just give our boots, to the new recruits
And they will fight, the racist grass-roots
Three arrows, upon my breast
For we are anti-racists, America's best
10,000 of us will fight before it's too late
We're gonna end, this fascist hate
******
"SHARP" based on "CYC" (LOYALIST) by Rab C., original lyrics are here (this loyalist song is probably the most offensive thing I listen to, the lyrics might be upsetting)
1. The first two lines are almost unchanged and despite the fact that they oddly don't rhyme, they seem to work.
2. Ian Stuart was the world's most famous Nazi skinhead. UPDATE 2/2/11 Saying that they terrorized the entire nation is an exaggeration, but lots of people have been terrorized by Nazis.
3. SHARP is SkinHead Against Racial Prejudice.
4. The ARA is Anti-Racist Action, a group with some connections to anti-racist skinheads, and is mostly/entirely youth, (their website, which has changed sometime recently, used to emphasize the youth aspect of the group) the average age is probably 19 ((I feel odd referring to an actual organization like that and hope they aren't offended, but the original refers to a second group related to the first).
5. Fred Perry and Ben Sherman are kinds of shirts traditionally worn by skinheads.
6. For a while I wasn't sure about this, but it seems like there is a lot of conflict between cops and SHARPs. As I've said elsewhere, I'm sure there is some friendliness here and there between cops and Nazi skinheads, although it's probably not common at all- it sort of makes sense that the Nazis would hide behind the cops.
7. The Connolly Column was the main Irish contribution to the anti-fascist side in the Spanish Civil War, and were something like 50-90% former IRA members. Between that and the fact that the original is about a youth-wing of the UDA (a loyalist paramilitary with more or less strong ties to British Nazis) the lyrics are twisted.
**8. 29% of this version is me, 71% is the original.
9. I give this song/poem five stars out of five.
All told their partners when they got home that
They didn't know where the blood came from
They beat them with bottles and their fists and their feet
And they kicked them up and down the street
'cause they hate Ian Stuart and Nazi organizations
That's what's terrorized the entire nation
All the Nazis were acting like pricks
And the SHARPS beat them with their bats and their kicks
When the cops tried to stop their bus
The union driver said it's nothing to do with us
So on your way, and have a nice day
Up the boys and girls in the ARA
It was the maddest thing that you ever have seen
All the young SHARPs as an anti-racist machine
They beat them good, they beat them insane
They fought like the Connolly Column in Spain
When the cops tried to intervene
They got it too, the best you've ever seen
Nazis ran away and hid behind the cops
Up the young people in the Fred Perry tops
The crowds all cheered as the SHARPS marched by
All the soldiers with their heads held high
They clapped their hands and stamped their feet
Anti-racist fighters are on the street
So please love don't be mad with me
Send my Ben Sherman out for a wee dry-clean
And if the cops are at my door
Tell them I don't live here anymore
One last note: Even with the songs that are only about 10% me (and at the upper end, one is 75% me), I have a request, although I don't have strong feelings or expectations about this. First, I want credit for these songs. Second, I'd appreciate it if the notes follow the lyrics around the internet. If you modify the lyrics further, please either make some notes for the changes if you leave some of my changes, or just provide a link to this URL so people can see my version. Although I'm not sure how many people will like what I'm doing with the lyrics, to one degree or another (depending on how much I changed them) I'm proud of these songs- and at the risk of getting a little personal, if people like the songs, I could really use the extra boost of getting credit for them right now (or if you don't like them, they were all written by Sarah Palin- that fascist, what kind of sick person enjoys altering racist lyrics?).
(The intro to this was re-typed and republished in Feb. 2020)
(SHARP is SkinHead Against Racial Prejudice)
As you know, I alter lyrics of songs I listen to and and post them. About half the ones below are based on stuff I politically despise, that's explained here.
There's some extra things I have to explain with this post. First, these are my poems about anti-racist skinheads. At some point I might do a post explaining why I believe them fighting Nazi skinheads is helpful to the anti-racist cause (including making it less likely Nazis will attack innocent people), but the legal stuff with that is iffy (if you want, email me and I'll email that to you). And although I focus in the poems largely on the violence, a lot of what anti-racist skinheads do that decrease the flow of recruits to Nazi skinhead groups is non-violent.
Also, I should point out that a HUGE part of this web-site is aimed at improving our anti-hate work and doing other things that will decrease the flow of recruits to Nazi skinhead organizations (although I haven’t read hardly anything on the web-site of the Southern Poverty Law Center for about 5 years, I get the impression that there may be fewer Nazi SKINHEADS today than there were 5 years ago, but when I first wrote this I had reason to believe they were still a serious part of the problem).
This will be the second post where I include stuff based on N. Ireland loyalist music which I also listen to (three of the poems below are based on it). Although I could point to the fact that I'm Catholic and Irish-American (which partly closes the gap between saying I shouldn't use those songs and saying I can do whatever I want with them), it can't hurt if I also remind people that I've done a lot to fight what that music stands for.
I have a small amount of knowledge about skinheads that is drawn from talking with them, and I have a lot from reading good sources, a lot of common sense, and 100% of what I have written in the notes and lyrics has gone uncritisized by a SHARP I know and an anti-fascist militant I know. The main thing is that I know that SHARPs are helpful to the anti-racist cause, and the odds are pretty good that I got the details about skinheads right.
Lastly, as far as i can tell, only some large minority of anti-racist skins can be considered solidly left-wing or progressive, probably a small majority in America would vote Republican (that's a rough, educated estimate) and many are sort of or very non-political. And probably most are very patriotic. THE POINT is that I'm not trying to give a slightly innacurate impression through my lyrics of the politics of anti-racist skins, but probably a small majority are more or less as left-wing as I am, and the fact is that I'm going to write these songs more or less as a leftist.
Also, some anti-racist skinheads identify as such just so that fewer people will think they're racist. These poems are certainly about those who go beyond that.
Since I originally wrote these poems, I have learned that what this or that color of laces means is even more confused than I thought. In general, white is fash, black is neutral, and non-black colored laces are anti-racist, but there are plenty of exceptions.
I also believe that even though they're skinheads, they're probably in some ways less violent than the Nazis. Fascism celebrates violence. And even though their numbers are small I would still ask, how often do you hear of anti-racist skinheads attacking innocent people? And they are anti-racist skinheads partly because they are worried about the image of skinhead, which I think makes it likely they are less likely to attack innocent people.
Lastly, I should address my frequent references to the working-class. Although there are probably some exceptions, skinheads in general are working-class and even when it’s warped by fascism, they have a strong sense of working-class pride. As far as the anti-racist ones, I’m not saying they’re at the heart of the working-class or represent more than some absolutely tiny percentage of that class or that they will play a central role in defeating fascism (I even wouldn’t be surprised if their numbers are fewer today than they were in the past). But I like to talk about what they are fighting for the way I do in the poems below.
Here and there I say that a "crew" is a skinhead gang. But, with the exception of the Nazis, it doesn't mean what you think.
I'm going to start with the least impressive and end with the most. I'll indicate which are based on racist, republican, loyalist or other stuff.
For the rest of the poems click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom (there are at least two pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page). The rest of the SHARP poems are found, along with some other poems, here. There are three poems about Ian Stuart Donaldson here. Although it's partly a republican thing about N. Ireland, there is an anti-fascist video I found on YouTube and after I got permission from the person who created it, I uploaded it to my blog. It's pretty funny if you are anti-fascist and even remotely pro-IRA.
"Nazi Scum" based on "S.H.A.R.P. Scum" (RACIST) by Vinland Warriors, original lyrics are here.
1. The original says "back" instead of "black" but it almost sounds like "black" which is hilarious. Also, in 1998 in Las Vegas, two SHARPs (Lin Newborn, 25, and Dan Shersty, 21), were killed by Nazis, one of them was black, so I decided to do the lyrics this way and dedicate the song to the Black anti-racist skinheads.
2. Although I believe people should beat the shit out of them, and I can make an exception for this next part, I actually am more or less against people killing them.
3. There's an argument, that I believe, that the Nazi skinheads are not really skinheads, they usurped the skinhead identity. This is based on the idea that since the skinhead sub-culture was started in connection with Jamaicans, if you're a racist you can't be a skinhead.
**4. 6% of this version is me, 94% is the original.
5. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
6. Like many of my songs, I am writing with someone else voice. That's certainly the case here.
7. Based on some things I've learned, I believe black skinheads probably have some kind of black pride. In a SHARP youtube video, at the beginning, it says "pride without prejudice."
You take our style and our streets
We are skinheads, we're the elites
Get out of our way, we're coming for you
believe me that the talk is true
Chorus:
Nazi scum
You fucking scum
Nazi scum
Your time will come
Nazi scum
You're under attack
Class pride
We're proud to be black
We're gonna put all of you down
We'll put you six feet underground
You're gonna fall one by one
Now pay the price you fucking scum
Chorus
This war has just begun
We're coming for you with loaded guns
I want to put a bullet in your head
Put you in a coffin before you're dead
******
"Jan Kucera" based on "Billy Reid" (REPUBLICAN) author unknown, lyrics are here.
1. Jan Kucera was a Czech SkinHead Against Racial Prejudice killed by Nazis in early 2008. See this. Also, I found two commemoration videos (actually, there's others, but these are my favorites) here, and here (this one shows security camera footage of the incident, might be upsetting).
2. It's not likely the flags all flew at half mast, but they should have, and the best option seemed to be to leave it that way.
3. It's not clear, but I got the impression somewhere that the stabbing was in an apartment building, possibly Jan's. The impression I got was that the Nazis followed the anti-fascists from the pub and attacked again.
**5. 32% of this version is me, 68% is the original (that includes 100% of a new verse, where I twice altered the second-to-last verse of the original).
6. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
7. Bonehead is an anti-racist term for Nazi Skinheads.
I'll sing you a song, of a terrible wrong,
When the flags all flew at half-mast
A man he lay dead, he was killed by boneheads,
And he died because he stood fast
chorus:
And the radio said, a skin was stabbed dead
And he died an antifascist to the last
But they never said why, Jan Kucera had to die
Well he died for the working-class
It happened in 2008, when boneheads full of hate
Set out to start a pub fight
Dumb as the KKK, they thought the SHARPs would run away
But the SHARPs knew they were right
Chorus
Back at his place, returned the Aryan race
And when the fight had begun
His position was dire, but his spirit never tired
His courage was second to no one's
chorus
Allthough the fash had a knife, Jan readily risked his life
His fists flew and they flew and they flew
But the fash stabbed with the blade, and then ran away
And Jan lay dying surrounded by his friends and his crew.
chorus
And when he was dead, all remembered for what he had bled
The casket, 400 friends and family did surround
And the fash still fear him yet, and they'll never forget,
How brave Jan Kucera stood his ground.
Chorus
If you think he was right, come join in the fight,
And help to protect the working-class
For although he is dead, we remember for what he bled
And in our minds his memory will last.
Chorus
******
“Stand Up And Be Counted SHARPs/RASH” based on “Stand Up And Be Counted” (RACIST) by the Klansmen, original lyrics are here.
1. The original is a classic Ku Klux Klan song.
2. SHARP is SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice, RASH is Red and Anarchist SkinHeads.
3. Doc Martens are boots worn by something like 99% of skinheads.
4. Three Arrows is an anti-fascist symbol (that’s what I call it). Braces are suspenders.
5. Bonehead is an anti-racist term for Nazi Skinhead.
**86. 44% of this version is me, 56% is the original.
7. I give this song/poem two stars out of five.
8. My thoughts about American democracy are here.
Chorus:
Stand up and be counted, help us stop the fash
Stand up and be counted, join the SHARPs or the RASH
We are anti-racists, who love the working-class too
We always can be counted on, when there's a job to do
We serve the working-class day and night, to keep it always free
Proudly wear our Doc Martens, protecting liberty.
Chorus
Survival calls for vigilance the symbols of our scene
Baseball bats and Three arrows, boots and braces, we’re anti-fash machines
Against hate and fascism we fight the fash hand to hand
We must defeat the boneheads to save our democratic land
Chorus
******
This song is based on "Skinhead Boy" by Prussian Blue (RACIST).
Here are some notes:
1) Towards the begginning, even though I'm not a sociologist, I feel comfortable saying that "race" is something we should stand up against.
2) I changed the color of laces from WHITE to BLUE (in my experience, blue stood for anti-racism).
3) "Pride." We know what kind of fucked up pride they mean, but skinheads also have a sense of working-class pride, so in this version it refers to that.
Unfortunately for me (depending on the circumstances in which I sing it) the original was written by two teenage girls who adore nazi skinheads. No matter what version I sing, I'm skipping the chorus for various reasons (the chorus, bearing in mind that "oi!" is a skinhead phrase, is "oi, oi, oi Skinhead boy, you're my oi boy"). Although under certain circumstances I'd be willing to sing the anti-racist version of "Skinhead BOY" (there's two lines I'm comfortable singing, but the chorus, at least the vast majority of the time I imagine singing it for people, it would not be appropriate) below are the anti-racist lyrics for "Skinhead GIRL." (a Chelsea is a skinhead girl haircut) The original lyrics can be found here (they get one line wrong- instead of "come inside give us a view" it should be "comrades like you are so few").
**2% of this version is me, 98% is the original (excluding sex changes).
I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
UPDATE 11/30/09 I'm tempted to change the 3rd and fourth lines to: Skinhead girl, courage unsurpassed/ Standing up proud for the working-class. Let me know what you think in comments or by email.
UPDATE 1/20/20 I just made that change.
"Skinhead Girl"
Skinhead girl, standing fast
Not afraid to kick some ass
Skinhead girl, courage unsurpassed
Standing up proud for the working-class
Skinhead girl, skinhead woman, please stay true to our plan
Skinhead girl, skinhead woman, some day you will save our land
Skinhead girl with the boots and braces
Your boots tied with bright blue laces
Chelsea hair and eyes so blue
Comrades like you are so few
Skinheads are my favorites
They're the real patriots
They have honor, they have pride
They have courage deep inside
****
"Get Out Nazi Boneheads" based "go On Home British Soldiers" (REPUBLICAN) by South Dublin Union (performed by lots of groups), original lyrics are here.
1. Bonehead is an ant-racist term for nazi skinhead.
2. The idea, quite credible, is that the nazis aren't real skinheads and don't understand what it's about. The idea is that the Nazi skinheads are not really skinheads, they usurped the skinhead identity. This is based on the idea that since the skinhead sub-culture was started in connection with Jamaicans, if you're a racist you can't be a skinhead.
3. Although there were explicitly anti-fascist skinheads before this, they got more explicit in 1987 by using the term "SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice."
4. I'm sure they're willing to keep fighting for as long as neccessary, but I decided to go with the original (which says 800). Besides, it gives the rest of the anti-fascist/hate movement incentive to make some progress, we'll only have our skin allies for 22 more years! : )
5. The ARA is anti-racist action, a group aligned with anti-racist skins which the nazis like roughly as much as they like SHARP (in hindsight I'm not sure I really HAD to refer to the ARA, but apparently when I was altering that line ARA worked best; I appologize if the ARA is offended).
6. In 1998 two anti-racist skins were killed by Nazis in Las Vegas, NV. They were Lin Newborn, 25, and Dan Shersty, 21.
7. I imagine that after making some effort to prove they've changed, nazis are welcome to join SHARPs, probably with some exceptions. I've heard of one who became a nazi because his dad was telling him what to do, but then the Klan started telling him what to do, so he became a SHARP.
8. Psychotic might not be the best word for what I was thinking, but makes more sense than "violent."
9. the red, white, and black are the colors of the nazi flag.
**10. 55% of this version is me, 45% is the original.
11. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
12. When I refer to the working-class united, that's not as weird as you might think. I can't remember the details but in a class on African-American history, I learned that sometime in the 1700s in America there were rebellions by the lower classes and that these were very diverse. In response, the upper-classes started talking up white supremacy as a way to divide and weaken the lower classes.
Chorus:
Get out Nazi boneheads, get the fuck out
Have you any fucking idea what Skinhead is all about?
for twenty-two years, we've fought you without fear
and we will fight you for twenty-two more.
If you stay, Nazi boneheads, if you stay
you'll never ever beat us or the ARA
the brothers in 1998, will be the last before we end your hate
so take a tip and join us while you may.
Chorus
skinhead's not fascist, it's not hateful it's not psychotic
It's working-class! and proud we are to be
so fuck your red, white, and black, we want our scene back
we want to see the working-class united once more.
Chorus
Well we're fighting nazi boneheads for the cause
we'll never bow to the fash because
throughout our history, everyone was born to be free
so get out Nazi boneheads leave us be.
Chorus
*****
"Jane Hawkins," based on "Joe Hawkins" (originally non-political skinhead song, now SHARP) by The Oppressed, original lyrics here.
1. To be honest, when I first read the lyrics for the original, I hated it. Mostly because of the anti-hippie stuff. I'm not in love with them, but as a socialist, I figure about half of them are my allies, and skinhead hostility towards hippies is, at best, stupid. And I have reason to believe there has actually been some harrassment-violence towards hippies. But then I watched the video (I think it might be official instead of fan-made), for some reason I can't figure (I'm pretty sure most of the skinheads in the video were non-political; if they're anti-racist, I like it even more), I really liked it, and I certainly like the music, and as far as their anti-fascist/left-wing stuff, I love The Oppressed.
2. I started changing it simply by switching it from male to female- I don't know how I got that idea, but considering the final result, I'm glad I did.
3. Bonehead is an anti-racist term for nazi skinheads.
4. Chelsea is a skinhead girl hair-cut.
5. Roddy Moreno is/was the leader of The Oppressed, and spread the message of SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice from America to Europe, and probably had some affect on the growth of SHARP elsewhere.
6. Suss, I think basically refers to smarts.
7. I left out the third line of the Chorus- "she cares about you" just sounds lame.
8. If there actually was a real Joe Hawkins, that makes it a little awkward, but odds are there wasn't.
**9. 15% of this song is me, 85% is the original (I didn't count sex changes).
10. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
See her walking down the street
Doctor Martens on her feet
Levi Jeans, Ben Sherman shirt
Nazis fuck with her, they'll get hurt
Chorus:
She's a skinhead, and she cares
Marten boots and Chelsea hair
Walking down on the Brighton pier
Nazi boneheads filled with fear
Crunch of bone as the boot goes in
Jane's so proud to be a skin
Chorus
Roddy Moreno changed her ways
Now she's SHARP, she's her to stay
So if you think you've got the suss
Be a SHARP, be like us
Chorus
She's a Queen, Queen of the skins
What's her name, Jane Hawkins
******
"Skins of the RASH" based on "Men of the UDA" (LOYALIST) by the Thornlie Boys (wouldn't surprise me if the lyrics are originally by someone else, with loyalist and republican stuff the author is often unclear/unknown) (can't find original lyrics on internet, see this)
1. RASH is Red and Anarchist SkinHeads.
2. Orange County CA seems to have more than it's fair share of Nazi skinheads (that sounds wierd, like there should be a more equal distribution- I'd like to see more in Valhalla or Hell (preferabbly Hell, I'm not sure if people who gang up on (likely) weaker people because of bigotry deserve Valhalla (actually, I'm against killing them, for various reasons, and am mostly against permanently injurying them)).
3. I'm not sure if Nazi skinheads (boneheads) are disproportionately found in the former Confederacy, but it seemed like the best substitute.
4. "No Pasaran" is a slogan from the anti-fascist side of the Spanish Civil War, it means "They Shall Not Pass."
5. All/most RASH wear red-laces, although a lot of Nazi skinheads also wear red laces.
6. The original is about the Ulster Defense Association, which has, to one degree or another been connected to British Nazis. So, this song is not one where I have not twisted the original lyrics into the exact opposite of what they were intended, but there is still great conflict between my poem and the original.
**6. 50% of this version is me, 50% is the original.
7. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
in a dear little country they call America I joined with the skins of the RASH
and I was trained in combat with my comrades to defeat the fucking fash
now we'll go on down into Orange County, we'll go into the Confederacy
to seek out and fight the boneheads, and knock those fash down to their knees
Chorus:
"No Pasaran" is our motto, and this is why we fight the fascist threat
For none shall ever seperate the brothers and sisters of the Proletariat
our members, they're some of the bravest since the 1945 push for Berlin
and that is why they volunteer to join with the red-laced skins
you know they're all over America, and in this anti-fascist war they'll prevail
and when the working-class she calls on them, their courage it never fails
chorus
******
"Three Arrows" based on "Orange Wings" (LOYALIST) (multiple versions, can't find the right one, but a similar version is here)
1. Three arrows is an anti-fascist symbol; I'm certain of that, but besides that I know nothing of this symbol.
2. I wouldn't say they're America's best, non-violent anti-racists are even more important.
3. part "...before it's too late/We're gonna end, this fascist hate" is more or less borrowed from "Nazi Nightmare" by The Oppressed.
4. OC refers to Orange County, CA, where there's a LOT of Nazi skinheads.
5. I don't expect the ANC to endorse American anti-racist skinheads, but I don't think they'll complain about this either (it's clearly referring to the military wing, it's not referring to the organization in government, or the faction that broke off, but the military wing which doesn't even exist anymore).
6. It'd be nice if there were 10,000 anti-racist skinheads in America, there's probably closer to 3,000. Maybe if my arguements in favor of them get out there more, there'll be more.
7. obviously, I mean former Confederacy, although I'm not sure if Nazi skinheads are more common there than in PA or IN for example.
8. Bonehead is an anti-racist term for Nazi skinhead.
9. White laces are worn by Nazi skinheads on their boots (in America, if they're nazis and they wear red laces, that usually means they at least tried to kill someone).
10. I'm certain they don't pass on their boots, but it made the most sense, and rhymed. I'm not sure if Nazi skinheads are the grass-roots, but it's close to accurate.
UPDATE 2/2/11 I just realized that "bats," "Docs," (docs are boots) might have been better. Sometime soon I will look at the rhymes available with those words.
11. The original is about the UDA, a loyalist paramilitary with more or less strong ties to British Nazi organizations, so this is twisted.
**11. 56% of this version is me, 44% is the original.
12. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
Three arrows, upon my breast
For we are anti-racists, America's best
10,000 of us will fight before it's too late
We're gonna end, this fascist hate
And when we go into the OC
Just like the soldiers of the ANC
10,000 of us will fight before it's too late
We're gonna end, this fascist hate
Three arrows, upon my breast
For we are anti-racists, America's best
10,000 of us will fight before it's too late
We're gonna end, this fascist hate
And when we go, into the Confederacy
The boneheads, will be brought down to their knees
The scum in white laces, we will smash their faces
We are skinheads, of all races
So when we're dead, we're in our graves
No fancy tombstones, shall we crave
Just give our boots, to the new recruits
And they will fight, the racist grass-roots
Three arrows, upon my breast
For we are anti-racists, America's best
10,000 of us will fight before it's too late
We're gonna end, this fascist hate
******
"SHARP" based on "CYC" (LOYALIST) by Rab C., original lyrics are here (this loyalist song is probably the most offensive thing I listen to, the lyrics might be upsetting)
1. The first two lines are almost unchanged and despite the fact that they oddly don't rhyme, they seem to work.
2. Ian Stuart was the world's most famous Nazi skinhead. UPDATE 2/2/11 Saying that they terrorized the entire nation is an exaggeration, but lots of people have been terrorized by Nazis.
3. SHARP is SkinHead Against Racial Prejudice.
4. The ARA is Anti-Racist Action, a group with some connections to anti-racist skinheads, and is mostly/entirely youth, (their website, which has changed sometime recently, used to emphasize the youth aspect of the group) the average age is probably 19 ((I feel odd referring to an actual organization like that and hope they aren't offended, but the original refers to a second group related to the first).
5. Fred Perry and Ben Sherman are kinds of shirts traditionally worn by skinheads.
6. For a while I wasn't sure about this, but it seems like there is a lot of conflict between cops and SHARPs. As I've said elsewhere, I'm sure there is some friendliness here and there between cops and Nazi skinheads, although it's probably not common at all- it sort of makes sense that the Nazis would hide behind the cops.
7. The Connolly Column was the main Irish contribution to the anti-fascist side in the Spanish Civil War, and were something like 50-90% former IRA members. Between that and the fact that the original is about a youth-wing of the UDA (a loyalist paramilitary with more or less strong ties to British Nazis) the lyrics are twisted.
**8. 29% of this version is me, 71% is the original.
9. I give this song/poem five stars out of five.
All told their partners when they got home that
They didn't know where the blood came from
They beat them with bottles and their fists and their feet
And they kicked them up and down the street
'cause they hate Ian Stuart and Nazi organizations
That's what's terrorized the entire nation
All the Nazis were acting like pricks
And the SHARPS beat them with their bats and their kicks
When the cops tried to stop their bus
The union driver said it's nothing to do with us
So on your way, and have a nice day
Up the boys and girls in the ARA
It was the maddest thing that you ever have seen
All the young SHARPs as an anti-racist machine
They beat them good, they beat them insane
They fought like the Connolly Column in Spain
When the cops tried to intervene
They got it too, the best you've ever seen
Nazis ran away and hid behind the cops
Up the young people in the Fred Perry tops
The crowds all cheered as the SHARPS marched by
All the soldiers with their heads held high
They clapped their hands and stamped their feet
Anti-racist fighters are on the street
So please love don't be mad with me
Send my Ben Sherman out for a wee dry-clean
And if the cops are at my door
Tell them I don't live here anymore
One last note: Even with the songs that are only about 10% me (and at the upper end, one is 75% me), I have a request, although I don't have strong feelings or expectations about this. First, I want credit for these songs. Second, I'd appreciate it if the notes follow the lyrics around the internet. If you modify the lyrics further, please either make some notes for the changes if you leave some of my changes, or just provide a link to this URL so people can see my version. Although I'm not sure how many people will like what I'm doing with the lyrics, to one degree or another (depending on how much I changed them) I'm proud of these songs- and at the risk of getting a little personal, if people like the songs, I could really use the extra boost of getting credit for them right now (or if you don't like them, they were all written by Sarah Palin- that fascist, what kind of sick person enjoys altering racist lyrics?).
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