Get all 17 The Mighty Ur releases available on Bandcamp.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Socially Acceptable?, Nano 2020, No Expectations, Eggs, The Log Splitting Man & Other Tales, Eulogy, Take It On The Chin, Now/Then, and 9 more.
1. |
Socialist Cortinas
04:13
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SOCIALIST CORTINA’S
Grandad
You and grandma had it all, they say
And yet you vote for them to take away our chance at a proper start in life
Nowadays a tiny starter flat costs thirty times our combined annual wage they say
And you were even opposed to a minimum wage ….
Yet you benefitted very nicely – they say
From the last vestiges of a socialist infrastructure -
Even as your Tory-heroes hive it off and flog it off and piss it all away they say
Don’t you see, they plea –
It was a one-time-only yard-sale – a fire sale – a bonfire of the utilities –
God all-bloody-mighty! –The sheer futility of trying to teach these snot-nosed kids a lesson in history!
Let me tell you about the miserable nineteen-seventies
You lot, you know nothing about the Winter of Discontent! I say.
Bolshie lazy British Leyland workers
Striking for the right to sleep in the back of the Ford Cortina’s they were too lazy to even polish
Coz this was a time before Margaret Thatcher was around to admonish and astonish them all
By letting them hit the bloody wall – market forces – horses for courses – and you couldn’t just opt to stay in the stables and withdraw your labour – coz they shoot lame horses, don’t they?
And all of a sudden it’s a thoroughbred economy and bloody Steptoe and Son can step aside – and that whole ‘you can’t touch me I’m a part of the Union’ attitude can take a bloody hike.
Even into the nineteen eighties -
Michael Foot in his donkey jacket and monkey boots, making a mockery of the Monarchy –
Arthur bloody Scargill standing shoulder to shoulder with flying pickets mocking and blocking and berating the drivers outside the colliery gates… all that scabbing, all that hate … and the endless wait on the other end of a nationalised phone line --- and the poxy curled sandwiches they served on the late trains of the nationalised rail-lines…
And you know what, you know what? – The irony is I’d bet my mortgage-free house that those miner’s - thanks to Margaret Thatcher - actually had longer lives --- no I never said they enjoyed those longer lives – but longer lives once deprived of those toxic mines, nonetheless – yes, granted – their community probably descended into a work-less, drug-ravaged almighty mess – but nonetheless –
Don’t even get me started on the kind of mess Comrade Corbyn will land us in if we allow ourselves to regress – to the bloody 1970’s – at best -
So, yes we sacrificed community on the altar of market-forces
And along the way we had to sacrifice a few of the lamer horses
And you say that this country is harsher, meaner -
But if the Socialists had had their way, and the Tony Benn’s had won the day
We’d still be driving around in clunky, unpolished, Socialist Ford Cortina’s…..
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2. |
Albion Sleeps
03:27
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ALBION SLEEPS
She left in the morning with just a burlap sack
She sat upon the bus with the sack upon her lap
She marvelled at the travellers who all looked very sad
And in the service stop the salesmen, all seemed very sad
And the teller and the feller selling coffee, they seemed sad
And she prayed that the city was exempt from all this sad
But when she arrived in the city not far after five
All the faces seemed blurred
And only half-way alive
So she sat by a statue, tried to pin down the picture
But her eyes weren’t adjusted, and her brain wouldn’t let her
And a man shouted at her
And another tried to tempt her
And she slept in a doorway till a cop came and kicked her
So she walked by the river where a man tried to trick her…
And as the drunks staggered homeward and the jackals closed their eyes
She began to see the city as the sun began to rise
And in the shadows of the shards and the black brick buildings
The steeples and the courtyards had their moment of revealing
Amidst the sky-scape of Hawksmoor and the mind-scape of Blake
A landscape of Albion was summoned in its wake
And the God within the River raised his head to shake his hair
And the ancient stone of London sent a signal to her there
And the head of Bryn ascended from a mound near Tower Hill
Whilst the Southwark geese all danced to a mighty jig and reel
She heard the echoes of the anarchy of ancient London fayre’s
Where the rich never lingered, and the power never dared
She glimpsed the ghost of Jack Sheppard upon the rooftops of the Squares
And Leno’s crazy clog-dance whipped a whirlwind in the air
All the heroes of the city filled her aching soul with light
As she pulled her knees to her chest and curled her aching body tight
Cocooned now in sleep, the revelries all ended
And she dreamt the city back to life, as the worker-ants descended
And each and every day thereon she would dream as they descended
See, now she sees beyond the blurs and the slate-grey etched-in faces
She sleeps amidst the majesty of all the hidden holy places
She lies outside the fear and lies; the ruckus; riot; and squall
Some say she’s an incarnation of the Holy Hermit in the wall.
But maybe she’s a frequency – outside of space and time
And the spirit of the City, within her now resides
And though the Peace of the city is killed by screaming cars
And the Light of the city extinguishes the stars
And the Heart of the city is banished to the edges
And the Beat of the city is traded by the hedgers
The Soul of the city is safe within her hold
So pray tonight she’s wrapped up tight against the biting cold
And bless her when you see her and thank her for her dreams
For the dreams she weaves are miracles and we are products of those dreams
So bless her
If you see her
And maybe, you could feed her
For though the city is her lifeblood
It often fails to feed her
And if the city shall not feed her, and if she fails to dream
Then
Well – can we even visualise a world devoid of dreams?
-Can any of us visualise - a world - devoid of dreams?
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The Mighty Ur Leyburn, UK
The Mighty Ur are Steve McAuliffe (words) AC Monks, DP & Sned (music).This bandcamp site holds the music created with with a variety of musical co-conspirators in a variety of styles along with the works of The Mighty Ur
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