Name: WE ARE THE DEAD [2024] by The Crows Of Albion / Bard Company
Duration: 3 min 1 s
Description: https://thecrowsofalbion.bandcamp.com/album/screaming-blue-murder

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/screaming-blue-murder

WE ARE THE DEAD [2024]

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

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/

WE ARE THE DEAD [2024]

The Crows Of Albion / Bard Company

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