“There is light at the end of the tunnel, apparently. Except that light looks an awful lot like more cuts and lower trend growth.” Says Stephen Bush in today’s Morning Call about the Spring Statement in the New Statesman
Faraway People by Reg Meuross has won awards and been played live on National Radio, but the job of this protest song is not done until people have really listened and understand what is going on, and until real change is made.
FARAWAY PEOPLE by Reg Meuross
Carl Payne, Leanne Chambers and Terry McGarvey
There but for grace luck and fortune go we
Wayne Grew, Linda Wootton and poor David Coupe
But for the whim of our government go me and you
Stephanie Bottrill lived only on custard
While her small income paid for a bedroom unused
One cold winter’s day she walked under a lorry
Her benefits cut and assistance refused
Julian Little was bound to a wheelchair
His machine in the spare room to keep him alive
‘it’s a luxury people like you can’t afford’
Said the council and Julian withered and died
CHORUS
These are the voices of faraway people
The man in the street and the hospital bed
The scandal of governments unfit to govern
Look down look down look down
You’ll be unfit to work when you’re dead
Seven ropes swinging and seven souls singing
Lifted from poverty lifted from pain
Freed of their guilt and relieved of their burden
For the price of a hotel or lunch on the plane
For 300 pounds you spend a day on the benches
And award for a week just a sixth of that fee
To a man who faced death for this land in the trenches
And sooner than starve hangs himself from a tree
Look into the eyes of Nicholas Barker
Barely able to hold up the gun
Or young Christelle Pardoe clutching her baby
As she leaps 5 months gone into oblivion
