... and when is human rights political?
NYC Celtic bands still looking for singer, as per earlier post... Contact InOBU@aol.com It is a sad comment on the state of Irish identity when six band members quit over doing any songs about civil rights, which they consider political (less than 5% of our music). What the hell is folk music about, if not the interests of our class, and if we exclude from our class interests the murder of Gypsies, the forced assimilation of American natives and theft of Indian land, then who are we as a working class, but a bunch of brain washed wage slaves.
Here is an example of politically offensive music, I ask you...
(it is a true story by the way...)
I'll tell you all a story that took place the other day
concerning a Romni, a Gypsy, you would say
In Czechoslovakia, she lived a worker's life
but in the Czech republic, just another Gypsy wife

a mother of four children, it was a struggle every day
for the first day of democracy was the last day of her pay
The revolution promised bread and roses and a home
but the counter revolution, excluded all the Rom

Bread and Roses, Roses, Bread and Roses
The velvet revolution promised none

Grandmother told her, hard the changes she did see
as women we could not stay home, the way it used to be
We Romni thought it was our right, keeping children and the home
but Communism meant new rules even for we Rom

But though we had to labor, we were allowed to settle down
Before the revolution we were chased from town to town
We felt it wasn't fair, we had to hide our ancient ways
but compared to the traveling, we were living better days

Bread and Roses etc.

One day the system crumbled, freedom swept the land
But the wolves of hatred, followed close at hand
We were again like storks, and driven out just like before
Once again we heard the taunts, get out you gypsy whore

The nazi gangs of hate that fell before the blood red might
rose up again in Prague, and we returned to that dark night
And now, we must be careful, and be watchful every day
avoid the gadje, * grand daughter she did say

Bread and Roses etc.

But caution was impossible, the hate was everywhere
a Czech gang surrounded her, cursing her black hair
They threw her from a bridge into the river running fast
another Racist murder, as in the nazi past

The court then tried her killers, for this was a land of law
But justice was blind, as blind as ever it was before
They ruled it was the river, that had caused this wretched strife
The gang that threw her from the bridge, didn't take her life,

Bread and Roses etc.

She finally got her bread and rose like every worker brave
the bread at her pumana, ** and roses for her grave
A friend returned from Prague and told me that they now are free
I can only wonder, at what price liberty
For freedom for the smallest is the freedom worth a damn
for freedom for the powerful, is just a fascist sham
In the Czech republic, Roma wonder every day
why the cost of freedom, is theirs alone to pay
Bread and Roses

* Gadje, non-Gypsies ** Pumana, Gypsy feast for the dead
Larry