Slow Faction - La Commune

 

  I think it's fair to say this lot never let us down...

  London's finest Slow Faction (https://www.facebook.com/slow.faction) are back with somewhat of an epic. The erudite, old school politically charged 4 piece are no strangers to this blog and hopefully no strangers to your heart so I don't need to write a lengthy intro, lets just move onto the song (the lyrics are lengthy enough to fill up this update and much more interesting than anything I could write!). 

  This is my take on it what John Youens is writing about this time around; he's showing us that history repeats. He's writing about the Paris Commune (the main insurrectionary commune of France in 1870-1871) and how it seized control of the city and governed Paris for two months, establishing policies that tended toward a progressive, anti-religious system of social democracy, including the separation of church and state, self-policing, the remission of rent during the siege, the abolition of child labour, and the right of employees to take over an enterprise deserted by its owner. Feminists, socialists and anarchists played an important role but before they could fully implement their ideals they were suppressed by the national French Army during 'the bloody week' with thousands of Communards being either killed or executed. 

  I assume that John's drawing parallels between the time of The French Revolution and the state of the UK today with the first part of the song pretty accurately describing where we're at now. It doesn't seem as though this country's population is ready to rise up en masse as of yet (we seem much more restrained than the French when it comes to widespread civil unrest) but maybe the tide is beginning to turn? 

  You can get the song as a name your price download here : https://slowfaction.bandcamp.com/track/la-commune-demo

  It's called La Commune...

Night falls and the city sleeps
But I'm awake, I know what dawn brings
Dark forces are gathering
Just waiting for the morning's first light
The nations we were taught to hate
Sit this one out, they're just observers
New enemies are circling now
Even though they wear our colours

Election won then power seized
Autocratic, entitled ambition
Brought up in such privilege
Born to rule, as if it's a birthright
They stoked the fires of national pride
That only led to humiliation
Support was high in the provinces
So, they sold us out and our great city

They've split the country up in two
And we'll never surrender
To the forces of reaction
And the memories of faded empire

This is where we live and die
This is our city
Just faded photographs
Show the world that we were once here
And who will sing this song again?
This is our city
Will the next generations
Take up the fight to set themselves free?

So, we ran them out of town
The police, the army and the ruling classes
We made our own government
One for us all, the forgotten masses
Universal suffrage and equal pay and education
The dispossessed and refugees
Everyone was welcome in here....


Calling every city, calling every nation
Can't you see what they're doing to us
So, won't you come and help us fight back?
Calling every city, calling every nation
Sending out an SOS
So, won't somebody please save our souls


So the state came for revenge
They couldn't allow us to have our city
A provincial dictatorship
Dissention crushed, no toleration
So we gathered one last time
And sang the Internationale
Then we went to our families
To say goodbye before they came

So the state had its revenge
And when they came they showed no mercy
20,000 women and men took up arms and died for this city