A reflection on brutal home demolitions by the Israeli forces in the Massafer Yatta area of the South Hebron Hills in Israeli occupied Palestine on Sunday 18 October 2020

A Crime Against Humanity

Three further efforts for you further from the mic Coco.

Love 

Dave xx

Recording 2 Outro CocoNut River, Bones, Bodhran/Paint Brush and with Hand

In October 2012 I was in Tel Rumeida in H2 area of Al Khalil (Hebron). I was with a group of 'Internationals' at the Abuaisheh family home helping to harvest the olives. The family property is overlooked by settlers. They are allowed only four days to collect the olives, thus we were asked to help out. While we were working we were chatting about art and music. It's where the idea came to adapt Woody Guthrie's famous 'This Land is Your Land'. This is the final draft!

The photo is my all time favourite. I was accompanying girls from the village of Susya in the South Hebron Hills to school!

This Land Belongs To Palestine by Dave Clinch

My Cover of Palestine by Jim Page

I recorded this old Irish air on the uilleann pipes in memory of my old teaching colleague at the then Ilfracombe Arts College, Steve Baldwin.

Táimse I Mo Chodladh - I Am Asleep. Do Not Awaken Me. In memory of Steve Baldwin

'A Heritage of Quality'. Who Made the Shackles?
I was reading about the arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates at his front door in Cambridge Massachusetts by a policeman who acknowledged it was the professor's home but still arrested him for 'potential burglary'. 

The officer later apologised and presented Henry Louis Gates with the handcuffs he'd used with his name, James Crowley,  engraved on them. It had a chilling connection to the past. The handcuffs were donated to the National Museum of African American History and Culture

The song refers to a company in Birmingham that makes handcuffs. The proud boast on the Hiatt UK - Handcuffs website is 'Based on a heritage of quality two centuries old'. Their restraints were used during the Transatlantic trade in human bodies and subsequent slavery.

I was prompted to write this song, having also read the work of Marcus Rediker and others on the Transatlantic slave trade.

The song refers to a company in Birmingham that makes handcuffs. The proud boast on the Hiatt UK (Handcuffs) website is 'Based on a heritage of quality two centuries old'. Their restraints were used during the Transatlantic trade in human bodies and subsequent slavery

'A Heritage of Quality' - Who Made the Shackles?

My Cover of The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Percy Bysshe Shelley's masterpiece, which is considered by many to be the finest poem of political protest in the English language. I recorded this with my great friend, guitarist Chris Ayliffe, a great privilege in my view.

The Mask of Anarchy - PB SHelley

I love this song. 'Sometimes I need a lift from victory'. So poignant.

I bring this song into schools. The students respond very well and some lovely work has come out of it.

Dave Clinch

The King of Rome

A Song of Love in Gaza 23 November 2012
New Recording-  10 Years On

 And the love of Mohammed and Isra
 Is the love that cannot die.
 It's a song that was written in Gaza
 It's the love that will always survive.

 In the war that came to Gaza
 Back in the New Year of pain,
 Mohammed told Isra he loved her
Beneath that terrible rain.

The city of Gaza was burning
But their messages of love came through. '
How are you?' 'I'm ok. How are you? 
I love you.'
'And I love you, I love you, I love you.'

And the love of Mohammed and Isra 
Is the love that cannot die.
It's a song that was written in Gaza
 It's the love that will always survive.

Now in this month of November
Like Herod's war on the child,
Isra and Mohammed live in a nightmare, 
Their love song is buried inside.

But from darkness it will be nurtured
To return like a bird at sunrise.
Isra will sing their song of love again 
With Mohammed by her side.

And the love of Mohammed and Isra 
Is the love that cannot die.
It's a song that was written in Gaza 
It's the love that will always survive

“I've spoken to my dear friends Mohammed Soliman and Isra Badwan in Gaza tonight and they have allowed me to post their song of love, which I wrote today, on the computer of more great friends, Erella and Dani Dunayevsky, at Kibbutz Shoval, just 25km from Gaza.

I learned about Isra and Mohammed some months ago when a mutual friend in Gaza introduced me on Skype. I was deeply moved by their story. I tried to capture in the song what Mohammed told me about how they were phone messaging each other to see they were both ok when so called 'Operation Cast Lead' happened in 2008/9. 

He told me that in the first minute of 2009 he said to Isra that he loved her. In the first minute of 2012 he proposed to her. They married a few months ago.

The suffered so much then and now again during this latest barbaric attack by the Zionist state of Israel. In one of her texts to me this week Isra said they were in a nightmare. She was so frightened that she lost her voice and said she would never be able to sing again.
Earlier in the week Isra and Mohammed came to a decision that they would not be able to fulfil their dream of having a family, as they could not bring a child into the hell of Gaza.

I tried, along with others who have contacted them to offer hope. I do believe that Isra will find her voice again and that they will have the children they want so much.

Isra said tonight that she hoped we would be able to sing and play music together. What a joy that will be.

I wanted it to be a song of love and hope.

A Song Of Love In Gaza

A real treat. The first time I've heard the Dawn Chorus, approaching 72 years of age!

The Dawn Chorus, Jacob’s Ladder, Whitney on Wye 29 May

A collaboration with my friend and brilliant electronic music composer Martin Eve (4th Eden)

Each Number

Each number is one life
Each number is one loved one
Each number is one parent
Each number is one child
Each number is one sibling
Each number is one grandparent
Each number is one relative
Each number is one friend
Each number is one workmate
Each number is one stone in the pond
Each number is one ripple of grief
Each number is one name
Each number is one life lived
Each number is loss
Each number is one library of memory – gone
Each number is a rebuke to craven politicians

January 2021

each number

A poignant song about the perils of working in construction for Irish navvies. Many were employed on 'the lump', ie no insurance. A small payment might be made by an employer to a worker who was injured or to their family if killed in a workplace accident rather than having to pay for workers' insurance. 

Both my uncles Sonny and Michael worked 'on the buildings'. Thankfully they both emerged unscathed although Sonny had to stop working on the 'new Victoria line' because he developed breathing problems. Workers had to go through an airlock in some parts of the construction which he couldn't handle.

My Cover Of Building Up & Tearing England Down By Dominic Behan

ASFP My Cover of When the Ship Comes In by Bob Dylan

My Cover of The Joy of Living 2

Catherine's AIr

Catherine's Air

Amy Winehouse tragically died at the age of 27 on 23 July 2011, which happened to be my 60th Birthday. I thought that she was a wonderful singer. Tony Bennett said that she'd been one of the best he'd worked with. Some accolade!

This poem is a short reflection on her life
Birthday Woman
The tattoos on her body paint a story
A vulnerable young woman in great pain
Who bewitches, beguiles and bemuses in turn
Who’s angry, brittle, gentle and strong

With body and soul she sings those songs
Holiday and Washington in every pore
Moulding, shaping her fragile strength
Life’s losing game still not found

Hear the lonely dance of her delight 
Aching, melancholic, oblivious, frayed
Engulfing memory, piled up high.
A thrilling grief for a life unknown
Dave Clinch

Birthday Woman. Written and read by Dave Clinch

The Ballad of Benjamin Lay co-written by historian Marcus Rediker and Dave Clinch was born out of the story of one of slavery’s earliest and most redoubtable opponents, The Fearless Benjamin Lay, The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist and the title of Marcus's biography.

The song crystallises the extraordinary life of Benjamin Lay, shepherd, sailor, guerrilla activist, auto didact, author, vegan and educator. No doubt he was a difficult man, but he cannot be faulted for his implacable opposition to slavery. His actions paved the way for the 19th Century abolitionists in North America and in Britain. Sadly, he was expelled from the Quakers during his lifetime following his abolitionist activities

In 2018 he was returned to the Quaker fold, a poignant coda to the publication of Marcus Rediker's remarkable narrative.

www.versobooks.com/blogs/3496-radi…279-years-later

The Ballad of the Fearless Benjamin Lay by Marcus Rediker and Dave Clinch

Auschwitz – Birkenau Death Camp
A Photograph from Auschwitz-Birkenau 
I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau on Saturday 11 May 2019 with my wife Liz The photograph was explained by our guide, Halina
I took a photograph

The Cattle Truck by Jorge Semprun was a big influence. The most extraordinary novel I have read.|

Never Again

thepipercallsproject

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