The dark side of the sun maybe!

The Holiday Song
Ewan MacColl 1970 (Note by Peggy Seeger)

In April 1967, a group of colonels seized control of Greece, supported openly by the USA. and tacitly by Britain. Martial law was enforced, the constitution was suspended and "democracy" came to an end. The king fled and the elected socialist leader, Andreas Papandreou, was jailed for nine years. Political opponents were systematically imprisoned, assassinated or forced to flee and stories of torture and brutality filled the television screens and newspapers of Britain. The film Z portrays the period from 1964 until 1974 when the junta was ousted. In the 1970 Festival of Fools, we dealt with the conditions in Greece by alternating three dramatic methods. On stage 3, this gentle blues was sung by two tanned women in bikinis, lounging under warm lights. On stage 2, a harshly lit torture scene took place. At the back of the hall, behind the audience, the rest of the cast spoke poetry in unison and sang one of my songs, "We Are the Young ones." as a tribute to the Cambridge students who had held a violent demonstration that April outside a hotel where an official Greek gourmet banquet was taking place.

London is beastly in winter,
Weather all rainy and gray;
Money won't buy a blue northern sky,
It's time that we were away.

Spain's just a little too common,
It's so overcrowded in Nice;
It's much much too far to Madagascar,
It's chic-er, antique-er, in Greece.

I've cruised all around the Aegean,
Sunbathed on the deck by the rails;
I danced to the band with a drink in my hand,
I didn't see any jails.

Aegina and Poros and Hydra
Slide by like a basket of dreams;
They've all got hotels and they treat you so well,
I didn't hear any screams.

With my passport and chequebook in order,
I follow the sun and the sea;
When the island of Crete bows down at my feet
Everything looks fine to me.

I've heard that the Greeks got no freedom,
I've heard there's a war on the way;
That don't bother me 'cause
I'm always free, I can go home any day.