Ditched Twitter for this place and thought I wouldn’t find myself ranting about our government’s refugee policies here also but this is a good effort for a great cause so obviously bought it for a bumped price. Only fear is now having those faces on the cover in my Bandcamp list.
I came to the UK as a political refugee aged four (the same age my daughter turns in a few months), back when things were slightly more tolerant (or fleeing the hells of Soviet occupation was more acceptable as there was a war on / we have white skin).
Our country’s current policies towards refugees disgust me so much I get too angry and sad thinking about it and need to stop. These are desperate people in far worse situations than my family was in being called awful dehumanising names, being wished drowning on, and being treated like pests when every statistic points to immigration having a massive benefit to society both financially and culturally. Nazi analogies are cheap and overused but one cannot fail to notice the UK politicians’ language being frighteningly similar to that used to murder a large part of my family in the holocaust before part two of 20th century europe occupation hell arrived.
As primarily a lyricist I’ve been planning a concept album of refugee ballads (in tribute to Dust Bowl Ballads by Woody Guthrie, the first and one of the greatest concept albums) for a while. I want it to be perfect and anger doesn’t always make the best writing so it might take longer. Would love to collaborate on something with anyone here in the meantime if up for it.
Maybe we should all take inspiration from Mr Guthrie and put “This machine kills fascists” stickers on our synth boxes and start making all our bleeps, beats, crackles and bloops more meaningful.
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