Attila the Stockbroker "Guy Fawkes' Table" Live

GUY FAWKES' TABLE
• Written and performed by Attila the Stockbroker http://www.attilathestockbroker.com with David Rovics http://www.davidrovics.com on harmony vocals.
• Recorded at the Radical Routes Co-Operatives Conference gig at Conway Hall, London, UK, on Sat 23 May 09.

I'm sitting at Guy Fawkes' table
The day Parliament voted for war
Though the mass of the people oppose it
And it flouts international law
I'm sitting at Guy Fawkes' table
While American thugs flaunt their power
Egged on by a sad little muppet
And his craven and cowardly shower.

CHORUS

Aneurin Bevan, your party is dead
And the time for a new one is nigh
Will the last person Left please turn out the lights?
New Labour, just fuck off and die.

They won't be caught up in the carnage
They'll be pontificating right here
Their kids won't be Iraqi conscripts
Moved down while they're shitting with fear
Saddam was the yanks' chosen ally
On a whim, they now say he must fall
So they'll carpet bomb defenceless soldiers
But that's not 'mass destruction' at all...

CHORUS

I'm sitting at Guy Fawkes' table
As Bush and his muppet connive
And I'm filled with unspeakable anger
And I'm thinking of 1605
One message, Dishonourable Members
Who endorsed an illegal attack
No, I don't want to bomb you like Guy did
But I'd love to send you to Iraq.

CHORUS

We need a new radical party
But not the Judean People's Front
Not another small sect, but a movement
With the power to change and confront
We need an electoral system
Which gives every voter a voice
'Cos we're fed up with voting for wankers
And we have the right to a choice!

CHORUS

In Attila's own words:

"I wrote this song on the day before an unlawful, senseless, evil and arrogant war was started by the hypocrite US Government who issued 771 export licences for 'dual use' technology to the fascist Saddam and now go to war because they don't know what he's done with the stuff. Perhaps they should check their receipts!!!! They claim a link between Saddam and al-Qaeda. There is! Both were funded by the US Government for years! It is an absolute disgrace that the British government and British troops are enmeshed in this nightmare. Unelected 'President' Bush and his regime doesn't give a damn about this country. UK plane shot down by U.S. Patriot missile - that says it all! STOP THE WAR!! The song is a requiem: - for all the people who will die and be injured and scarred for life - and for the British 'Labour' Party. All those battles, all that history, all those achievements - for this. A vote for Blair is a vote for a warmongering US toady who calls trade unionists 'wreckers'.

The party's over. We need a new one.

The table in question is in the Mother Shipton Inn in Knaresborough, West Yorks. I had no idea: I just went in there for a drink, sat down and saw the plaque on it. It seemed horribly appropriate to be there at that moment, a few hours after hundreds of Labour MPs whom so many decent and committed party members had campaigned for at the last two elections betrayed their party workers and constituents so abjectly.

I'm sure they won't be on the doorsteps next time! In 1997 I doorstepped and did a benefit concert for Ivor Caplin, MP for Hove, now one of the most enthusiastic warmongers. I feel ashamed to have done so and next time will be doing exactly the opposite!

(For mainland European readers, Guy Fawkes was a Catholic zealot who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. His motives were very dubious. But that's hardly the point.)"

Source: http://www.attilathestockbroker.com/poems.html

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Attila-the-Stockbroker
• Guy-Fawkes
• New-Labour

[JeanySullivan]

haha I love that as well! It's just a pity that the sound quality is not the best. It was weird that night. The folk group e.g. was brilliant too, but even dancing in the back, we were in pain coz it was so loud. And David and Attila were really hard to understand. Good we knew most songs by heart! :-D