Here are two campaign songs I wrote during 2021 and sang at demonstrations.
The first was in connection with Global Justice Now's campaign for the dropping of patents on vaccinations against Covid19. The demonstration was outside AstraZeneca's Cambridge premises, during their AGM in May. The tune is Vaughan Williams' 'King's Lynn', which became for me the signature tune to Lockdown 1 in March 2020. I wrote an article about the tune's story for the online news outlet East Anglia bylines, and am following that up with explorations of other hymn tunes.
THE ASTRAZENECA SONG
(to the tune King's Lynn)
We call on AstraZeneca
to make their patent free.
It's funded by the taxes
of folk like you and me.
The firm met the occasion
to get the vaccine done.
Now let it be their doing
but not a thing they own.
We call on AstraZeneca
to make their price pledge fair.
We hear what's outsourced to Pune
gets higher prices there.
We hear of countries with three times
their needed vaccines stored,
and others where vaccine's a thing
nobody can afford.
We call on AstraZeneca --
they're short of engineers --
to have more sharing of knowledge
in world health with their peers.
Think COVAX and its makers,
think Salk who long ago
gifted his treatment to the world
and conquered polio.
We call on AstraZeneca
to take Joe Biden's lead
and waive their rights in the vaccine
according to the need.
We see the Covid-19
Technology Access Pool.
We ask big pharma, ask this firm
to let the pool be full.
We call on AstraZeneca
and others in the field
to see more in their drugs than
the profits that they yield,
to listen to the protests
today outside their door.
Poor sort of wealth it is consists
in keeping others poor.
For Cambridge's demonstration on the Global Day of Action for Climate Justice, in November, I wrote a song to a tune by the seventeenth-century composer Henry Lawes. It's a fine, strong, angular tune. The link at the tune's name, below, will take you to its entry in hymnary.org , and you'll find a recording there. I took it somewhat faster than that at the demo (50’28” in the film).
(to the tune King's Lynn)
We call on AstraZeneca
to make their patent free.
It's funded by the taxes
of folk like you and me.
The firm met the occasion
to get the vaccine done.
Now let it be their doing
but not a thing they own.
We call on AstraZeneca
to make their price pledge fair.
We hear what's outsourced to Pune
gets higher prices there.
We hear of countries with three times
their needed vaccines stored,
and others where vaccine's a thing
nobody can afford.
We call on AstraZeneca --
they're short of engineers --
to have more sharing of knowledge
in world health with their peers.
Think COVAX and its makers,
think Salk who long ago
gifted his treatment to the world
and conquered polio.
We call on AstraZeneca
to take Joe Biden's lead
and waive their rights in the vaccine
according to the need.
We see the Covid-19
Technology Access Pool.
We ask big pharma, ask this firm
to let the pool be full.
We call on AstraZeneca
and others in the field
to see more in their drugs than
the profits that they yield,
to listen to the protests
today outside their door.
Poor sort of wealth it is consists
in keeping others poor.
For Cambridge's demonstration on the Global Day of Action for Climate Justice, in November, I wrote a song to a tune by the seventeenth-century composer Henry Lawes. It's a fine, strong, angular tune. The link at the tune's name, below, will take you to its entry in hymnary.org , and you'll find a recording there. I took it somewhat faster than that at the demo (50’28” in the film).
The song lists the outcomes we hoped for from the COP26 in Glasgow, which was running at the time.
Anyone who can tell me how the tune came by its name will be listened to with great interest. Farley Castle near Reading was built about two centuries after Henry Lawes' time. The name might refer to Farleigh Hungerford Castle in Somerset, which saw action and changed hands during the Civil War. Was Lawes ever there? Or was the tune named retrospectively by a hymnbook editor? Or is there some other story?
COP26, HERE'S WHAT WE WANT TO SEE
to the tune 'Farley Castle' by Henry Lawes
COP26, here's what we want to see.
Unblock the route to cleaner energy!
Corporate courts must never own the rules!
Cut them away, those harmful bosses' tools!
COP26, wherever oil is found,
coal, fossil gas, let them stay underground.
Earthquakes and fires have been the warning signs --
fund the transition, all who funded mines!
COP26, we want more jubilee!
Debt locks the global south's dependency,
debt saps green work, saps every healthy spend,
some debts are bad and doubtful. Have them end!
COP26, unmake the harm we made,
hold the UK to useful climate aid,
rich countries' reparations and our share,
small to our GDP and only fair.
COP26, write new rules that will bind.
See those with power hurting humankind,
see how their years have left the planet scarred,
hard work to tie them, work to tie them hard!
CC BY-SA 2.0
Arising from campaign demands presented at https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/our-campaigns/climate/
COP26, HERE'S WHAT WE WANT TO SEE
to the tune 'Farley Castle' by Henry Lawes
COP26, here's what we want to see.
Unblock the route to cleaner energy!
Corporate courts must never own the rules!
Cut them away, those harmful bosses' tools!
COP26, wherever oil is found,
coal, fossil gas, let them stay underground.
Earthquakes and fires have been the warning signs --
fund the transition, all who funded mines!
COP26, we want more jubilee!
Debt locks the global south's dependency,
debt saps green work, saps every healthy spend,
some debts are bad and doubtful. Have them end!
COP26, unmake the harm we made,
hold the UK to useful climate aid,
rich countries' reparations and our share,
small to our GDP and only fair.
COP26, write new rules that will bind.
See those with power hurting humankind,
see how their years have left the planet scarred,
hard work to tie them, work to tie them hard!
CC BY-SA 2.0
Arising from campaign demands presented at https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/our-campaigns/climate/
Earlier fruits of my interest in places that have given their names to hymn tunes are my Google Maps list of those in the British Isles and my retextings of 'Trentham' and 'Little Cornard'. Another person who shares this interest is Mark Browse, whose book O little town: hymn-tunes and the places that inspired them I strongly recommend.
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