Dance of the Underclass

I picked up this CD recently. I was mainly after a nice acoustical version of The Internationale I'd heard snippets of on some other blogs and websites. Turns out it was by Alistair Hulett. So I found this CD and it is really great. All the songs are political (Marxist) in nature. The music is pretty traditional Gaelic (Irish/Scottish) and the vocals are good but very folk - this is not the Dropkick Murphies or Flogging Molly

The song list includes (1-4 stars based on my personal and arbitrary tastes :) ):

• Among Proddy Dogs & Papes - A tribute to Scottish identity in opposition to Power, and a bit of an homage to William Wallace (still don't know what a proddy dog or pape is tho)
• Yuppietown - Yuppies moving in and forcing out working class people
• After the Smoke Cleared - Nice personalization of Marx's theory of primative accumulation
• Destitution Road - Trail of Tears for Scotts
• He Fades Away - Too sad for my likin'
• Suicide Town - Cool song about a grim little town
• No Half Measures - About an alcoholic father, poignant
• Farewell to Wiskey - Traditional Gaelic song about, you guessed it, an alcoholic
• The Swaggies Have All Waltzed Matilda Away - Excellent working class song, focuses on Australian solidarity
• The Plains of Maralinga - About the tragedy of bomb tests in Australia and the killing of aboriginals
• Dictatorship of Capital - Good song challenging the basic assumptions of the average non-socialist
• The Internationale - Awesome version, basically the original Pottier text, with the middle verse a bit different (see below).

In Hulett's Internationale the middle verse is as follows:

No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break the ranks and fight no more
and if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side

Very powerful words, and quite appropriate in our own time of perpetual war. Truly we are being sacrified and the ruling classes are cannibals literally devouring our flesh and dignity, and sucking our very life-blood.

So this CD was hard to find but I finally did get it here www.musicfolk.com a very friendly and prompt shop.