Sunday, June 20, 2010

You have to draw the line, sometime...

This song, by a band called Easterhouse, is one of the greatest political laments/call to arms I've ever heard. It's one of the few songs that still gives me chills 25 years after I first heard it in 1985. With the refrain of
“You have to draw the line/sometime/and I draw mine..."



video link

1969 by easterhouse

it seems that i remember
scattered shreds of far off days
the savage beat of soldiers feet
on streets of broken glass
that crushed the lie of justice
england brings to foreign lands
the truth came out and out and out
in 1969

how many must have thought that things
would work out differently
the labor hand of government
the workers' own party
who brought out their true colors
and nailed them to a mast
serve the union jack as they always have
1969 
You have to draw the line
sometime
and I draw mine
at Labour’s house-trained socialists
the lowest form of hypocrite
Who talk but when the chips are down
stay loyal to the King and crown
how desperately they tried
through schemes of treachery and lies
they hide their hands stained reddened
from countless irish lives
and talk of dangerous gunmen
the sectarian divine
and they tried to kill the truth behind
1969
You have to draw the line
sometime
and I draw mine
at this machine of murder
this system of brutality
and make ourselves a concrete hill
to bury the truth alive
and they talk of any sin
from the midst of the slaughter
they talk of their justice
and pain from the merger (murder?)
and the peace that they bring
is a piece of the grave
they are ripe for the fire--
there are none fit to save


no man can serve two masters
this surely is the truth
your country or your class
when it comes down
our kind must choose
from dark days of oppression
we must forge ourselves a lesson
while we are part of history
we can not make ourselves clear
You have to draw the line
sometime
and I draw mine
at Labour’s house-trained socialists
the lowest form of hypocrite
Who talk but when the chips are down
stay loyal to the King and crown

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