The Dreadnoughts - Back Home In Bristol

 "This album is a tribute to all the people who lived through the First World War, and to those who did not."

  I've been meaning to post something by The Dreadnoughts for a week or two but thought it'd be an idea to wait till this weekend with Armistice Day being yesterday and Remembrance Sunday being today.

  They're a folk/punk band from Vancouver who formed a decade ago and have a bunch of releases available from Bandcamp, the latest of which is new album Foreign Skies. Their first release in 7 years, it's a World War 1 themed concept album and it's a must for anyone who loved classics such as The Pogues' The Band Played Waltzing Matilda and The Men They Couldn't Hang's Green Fields Of France etc. You can order the vinyl or cd versions or stream it here : https://thedreadnoughts.bandcamp.com/album/foreign-skies

  Don't expect just your basic folk punk album though, as they say on their site (http://thedreadnoughts.com/) you'll get a sea shanty morphing into a Balkan dance, a Klezmer romp fading into a Queen-esque symphonic ballad and a Viking war chant crescendoing into a German polka. Intrigued? Just check it out for yourselves.

   "During the Great War, all armies on all sides executed their own soldiers for “cowardice” or for “disobeying orders”. They remained criminally unaware of the psychological damage that this new form of warfare was doing to the people they had lined up and shot."  

  This is Back Home In Bristol...


bless me father I have sinned 
bless me if you may 
by the power of jesus christ 
I came to you this day 

I am just a middle farmer's boy 
Jim wilson is my name 
and I've been out hard where devil runs 
I'll never go again 

well yes I know my duty sir 
and I know the god I serve 
I tried to stay out in the eastern line 
I tried to keep my nerve 

but all I could see were lily white arms 
and a gold and silken dress 
and all I could hear was a country dance 
and a calling from the west 

chorus: 
well I wish I were back home in Bristol again 
raising a cider with West Countrymen 
rolling in the arms of the the fair Kitty Wrenne 
back home in Bristol again 
back home in Bristol again 


seventeen days and seventeen nights 
we held up underground 
through misty panes and thick green light 
I saw death raining down 

and when it all was finished 
I just turned away in fear 
bless me father and and hold my hand 
until the dawn is here 


(chorus) 


I hear the party coming down 
to wrest me from my cell 
father don't you pray for me 
or speak to me of hell 

just deliver me a little song 
and a final taste of rum 
and tell the buggers who shoot me down 
just where ol' jimmy's from 

(chorus)