The Diggers and Levellers out here just not consenting to being landless slaves. We live now in a society of their nightmares and using industrialisation the exact same thing is being done to us by the capitalists. Technology will not liberate us when it is held by the oppressor; they will simply drive us to extinction, and tell us how lucky we are.
"The King of Righteousness, our Maker, hath inlightened our hearts so far, as to see, That the earth was not made purposely for you, to be Lords of it, and we to be your Slaves, Servants, and Beggers; but it was made to be a common Livelihood to all, without respect of persons." - Gerrard Winstanley, leader of the diggers, in his pamphlet "A Declaration from the Poor Oppressed People of England"
I usually feel comfortable with a song after a day or 2 but I'll usually mess around with one for a month before I record it -- if I record it. If lyrics are in a foreign language it'll usually take much much longer.
When I fully grasped who the diggers were or the time they were around it was absolutely insane to learn about Even bigger twist the most fanatical of the diggers were the Puritans who came to America to make their ideal communal christan society But in a tragic twist the Puritans who came to America to make their ideal society became the thing they wished to undo in Britan
Or, perhaps, you just don't know all the facts about Puritans and Diggers. For example, Oliver Cromwell, the Puritan dictator of England and the British Commonwealth. Can't really appreciate all the smaller movements of the era and then just neglect to view the guy who rose to the top out of it all. Also, I guess this is the Americanisation of history, but Puritans where in and all over the Americas before The Pilgrims of the Mayflower. When Oliver Cromwell lead in the successive English Civil wars, those wars were also happening in the American colonies, nominally Puritans and Parliamentarians (reason being that the Puritans were a major Parliamentarian faction of their own) vs Catholics and Royalists. The actual Mayflower Pilgrims landed in America 1620, Cromwell was born 1599, the 3 English Civil wars happened from 1642-1651, many of those original Pilgrims likely fought on the side of the Cromwell and the Parliamentarians in America. I mean, pretty much the major reason the Pilgrims left England, was one of the major causes of the Round Heads during the civil war, which Cromwell won.
If you could play the reggae song "socialism is love" by Max Romeo that would be cool. It highlights many of the reasons we are fighting for socialism.
i was struck by familiarity to the tune, and i finally placed it. the tune of this one is strikingly similar to renditions i've heard of "ye jacobites by name". given how often tunes are reused and iterated on for folk songs, i can't help but wonder if theres a link, either direct or through other songs?
