Riff-tastic take on the 'Neighbour From Hell'


Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia

https://thecrowsofalbion.bandcamp.com/album/bard-company-northern-powerhouse

BARD COMPANY: WALLS OF STONE

https://thecrowsofalbion.bandcamp.com/album/crowlore

The Crows Lament

The Bayonet In The Shed

He put it there in forty nine,
in a woodworm riddled drawer,
wrapped it in a greasy rag.
A remnant from the war.
On top of it he laid his medals,
nothing more was said
until the day my father 
took the bayonet from the shed.

We had pestered many times
and he had said ‘perhaps’
when we asked him if he’d killed
any Krauts or any Japs.
His eyes fixed on something far away,
as though searching for the dead,
but we found out what we wanted
when he took the bayonet from the shed.

He was a sergeant major
in the hell hole that was Burma,
where the Japanese snipers
would target you on a murmur.
He was proud of the campaign
and the boys that he had led
but he never ever talked
about the bayonet in the shed.

He didn’t hate all foreigners
and he said the greatest worker
that he had ever met in the war
was ‘good old Johnny Gurkha’.
That being brave wasn’t about killing,
he was happy when they fled,
then he went down the garden
and took the bayonet from the shed.

He was gone a short while
and when we saw him coming back
he was no longer marching proudly
along a heroes track.
We witnessed the aged warrior
return with heavy tread,
shoulders slumped in surrender
with the bayonet from the shed.

He moved the cloth reverently
and laid the medals by its side
and for the first time in my life
we watched as my father cried.
We sat with him and looked at it
and thought of bodies that had bled
after being introduced to
the bayonet in the shed.


(For Sergeant Major Kenneth Whiteley - 1920-1995 RIP)

The Bayonet In The Shed

Lead off track from BARD COMPANY'S new album 'All Systems Go' due out by the end of August

BARD COMPANY: Fight (Against The Right) In Your Party

There Are No Angels Here

WORDS/VOX: Ian Whiteley
MUSIC/INSTRUMENTATION: John Kettle

Scraping around the vipers nest,
flaming swords and thrusting spear,
black spiders scuttle to the feast
but there are no angels here.

The dragon crawls into their veins,
hallucinogenic ecstasy or fear.
The demon bares his fangs to bite
and still there are no angels here.

The first-born rounded up and caged,
harvesting the mothers tear,
the innocents are slaughtered.
Yes, there are no angels here.

No Seraphim, no Nephilim,
no Archangel seen far or near -
God’s army keep their powder dry.
There are no avenging angels here.

The dead will rise in Babylon,
false prophets will snipe and sneer,
the doubters branded heretics.
There are no longer angels here.

Tangled up in their own strings
the puppets and the puppeteer.
God is dead and Satan lives
because there are no angels here.

The fool sits in the house of white,
Apocalyptic portents appear.
Despite claiming the hand of God
there were never any angels here.

There Are No Angels Here

Raising The Standards (With Banners Held High)

You said that you wanted a land fit for heroes,
a place to call home that they’d show off with pride
but somewhere along the way you forgot
the reasons they fought and the reasons they died.

They thought they were fighting for honour and justice,
suppressing the tyrants and saving our land -
but returned to a country that punished the workers
for banding together and making a stand

So your songs are all dirges to the heroically fallen,
your words are all platitudes for their loss of life.
Your actions speak louder than all of your promises,
where lies are pandemic and betrayals are rife

Cause they died in the trenches with promises, hollow,
driving them forward and ringing in their ears
while you pocketed money that should have been spent
making jobs for survivors and easing their fears

Now we march all together and sing for the future,
while honouring those who we lost in the past
and we still want to believe all the promises made
as our young men were slaughtered, dismembered and gassed.

Prosperity offered like chocolate at Christmas.
Peace in our times and everlasting hope -
all that they got were more broken dreams,
more pointless wars, more money for old rope

The bosses got fat on the toil of their workers,
the bankers got fat on their interest rich loans
and the man who came back from the war that he fought in
was treated no better than their graveyards of bones.

So bang the drum comrade and never forget
that if silence is demanded then shout and be loud
and don’t let this government try to sell history
as though it is something for which we should be proud.

A century has passed and they’ve destroyed the mines,
they’ve doused the steel furnaces, grounded the docks,
left northern communities suffering and reeling
in their self proclaimed, privatised school of hard knocks.

There are still poor people living in poverty,
food banks are prevalent, folk on the street,
they cannot look after the homeless and feeble,
the old cannot pay for their lighting and heat.

From the mud of the trenches they came back home
Their future was as grey as the clothes on their back
They demanded we give them something to cling to
 A future of light in their visions of black.

England’s green fields, the red of the blood,
The gold we were promised, the blue of the sky
These are the colours we raise as our standard
Marching together, with Banners Held High.

BARD COMPANY: RAISING THE STANDARDS (WITH BANNERS HELD HIGH) [DEMO]

Originally from Wakefield West Yorkshire - now living in Wigan, Lancashire.
Bard Company/Crows Of Albion vocalist and Performance poet
Albums/Tracks can be purchased at: http://thecrowsofalbion.bandcamp.com/

BARD COMPANY: RAISING THE STANDARDS (WITH BANNERS HELD HIGH) [DEMO]

The Crows Of Albion / Bard Company

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