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How Much Is A Life Worth?

by The Four Fathers

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    The CD of The Four Fathers' second album comes with a full colour 8-page booklet by drummer Brendan Horstead featuring all the lyrics.

    Includes unlimited streaming of How Much Is A Life Worth? via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £5 GBP  or more

     

1.
How Much Is A Life Worth? (Andy Worthington) When you’re white and killed by terrorists, your value is the maximum And that’s what happened with the Twin Towers But in Afghanistan and in Iraq in retaliation Half a million were killed at a minimum It seems that one Western life is worth 200 Muslims And that’s the truth that they don’t want us to know ‘Cause warmongers only want to keep on warmongering Leaving us to ask in vain Chorus How much is a life worth? How much? How much is a life worth? If you’re fleeing death in Syria, in Libya or Iraq Or the nightmare that is life in Eritrea Westerners are getting more cold-hearted And they just want to send you back These Christians have given up on Jesus’s values Treating refugees like criminals When they’re the victims of our wars and our exploitation Leaving us to ask again Chorus How much is a life worth? How much? How much is a life worth? If you’re black in America, your life has no value Unless like Obama you’re part of the elite But for most it’s still like the days of slavery Though now they’re murdered by the police That’s why Black Lives Matter is the movement of the moment Trying to stop the hundreds killed every year From Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner With each new death we want to know Chorus How much is a life worth? How much? How much is a life worth? Line-up: Andy Worthington (lead vocals, electro-acoustic guitar) Richard Clare (electric guitar, backing vocals) Bren Horstead (drums and percussion) Andrew Fifield (flute and harmonica) Louis Sills-Clare (bass)
2.
Riot 06:56
Riot (Andy Worthington) The establishment want us to believe everything is fine But they're brutal and intolerant if they think we step out of line In 2011 when there was unrest in the streets They hunted down those who stole a bottle of water while the bankers all walked free They stole billions, they crashed the system and lost money for millions But they never paid nothing and it's the stench of this hypocrisy Chorus That means that there must be a Riot Riot Riot Till you treat us all with decency The establishment want to destroy the welfare state Except for their friends in the property racket who are all on the take They ignore the corporate subsidies that cost a hundred billion a year While making young people work for nothing as interns or through workfare We have to turn the tables on finding the disabled fit for work when they're not able Because the death toll is rising and it's anger at this cruelty Chorus (repeat) The establishment are only interested in the transfer of wealth From the young and poor to the old and rich at the cost of the nation's health They use our money on the services they want to privatise Then their cronies take all the profits while we're left high and dry And this insane house price inflation that's causing so much debt and so much consternation Is just the greed of the rich whose appalling sense of entitlement Chorus (repeat) Line-up: Andy Worthington (lead vocals, electro-acoustic guitar) Richard Clare (electric guitar, backing vocals) Bren Horstead (drums and percussion) Andrew Fifield (flute and harmonica) Louis Sills-Clare (bass)
3.
London 04:32
London (Andy Worthington) London, you were like a lover to me Drunk and disorderly and full of honesty In your wild pubs and squats we broke all the rules We decided that playing it safe was a game just for fools And though we lost many along the way to heroin and AIDS It was better to have loved and lost than to have let our passions fade away Yeah yeah yeah yeah London, they tried to stop you being free By selling off your culture and through the death of industry But you came bouncing back with your pills and your all-night raves In those glimpses of giddy utopia when millions misbehaved And you were like the earth mother on drugs from the M11 to Reclaim the Streets Though they hit us with the CJA and that ban on repetitive beats Yeah yeah yeah yeah London, you were my impetuous wife Always out and out of it with a voracious appetite But oh my darling, the end came with the men in suits Whose enthusiasm for the super-rich meant they sold you like a prostitute And when you still weren't silenced and laughed at their dull complacency They razed your neighbourhoods to the ground and gave you a lobotomy No no no no London, you're on a life support machine In the basement of one of those hundreds of towers being built for a foreign elite And oh my baby, I hope that you rise again And throw off these rich parasites like you have every now and then And I'll keep fighting against the dying of the light But without some kind of revolution the future doesn't look too bright to me Yeah yeah yeah yeah Line-up: Andy Worthington (lead vocals, electro-acoustic guitar) Richard Clare (electric guitar, backing vocals) Bren Horstead (drums and percussion) Andrew Fifield (flute and harmonica) Louis Sills-Clare (bass)
4.
She's Back 04:50
She's Back (Richard Clare) She's back from the dark night She's been away too long She's out of the twilight Eternal winter of frozen promises and faint regrets They gave her two years' hard labour For a prayer against Vladimir Now she's out and she's talking Which the internet misogynists hate ... hate Chorus She's got a purpose, a reason to carry on (x4) She thinks she's winning the long fight With the authorities Her head has been so tight She's heard the whispers, the guards are waiting Chorus (repeat) Repeat 1st verse Chorus (repeat) Line-up: Richard Clare (lead vocals, 12-string guitar) Andy Worthington (backing vocals, electro-acoustic guitar) Bren Horstead (drums and percussion) Andrew Fifield (flute and harmonica) Louis Sills-Clare (bass)
5.
Dreamers 04:08
Dreamers (Andy Worthington) We met in London in the restless '90s Before capital ruined it all We lived intensely with booze and euphoria Sometimes staying up wide-eyed till dawn You were the first of us to have a baby To show us how it could be done I still remember looking after your daughter And seeing how it could fun Chorus And we were dreamers then And we're still dreamers now Though we overcame some demons And gained some wisdom somehow You moved away to make sense of your dreams Though it left a hole in our lives But we soon embarked on our own adventure Putting our egos aside Now that we're older and our time is our own again Now that our children have grown The past has informed us, the present adorns us But the future's still unknown Chorus (repeat) Line-up: Andy Worthington (lead vocals, electro-acoustic guitar) Richard Clare (electric guitar, backing vocals) Bren Horstead (drums and percussion) Andrew Fifield (flute and harmonica) Louis Sills-Clare (bass)
6.
Tell Me Baby 03:56
Tell Me Baby (Andy Worthington) When we were young we would fly It was all the same game looking for sex or love Booze was the lube we would choose And for many I'd say those were the golden days But now I feel the weight of my life And all that gives me relief is the sweet taste of your love So please take some heed of my needs Cause I'm here all alone and the clock ticks on Chorus So you gotta tell me baby Cause I can't just hang around Yeah you gotta tell me baby When will your love come down? When we got older we paired But we were not prepared for how our lives would change Kids change you more than you know You lose your ego, you grow, and then one day they leave An empty nest can be a source of distress Or set you free once again to find out who you are And although age it can wither and maim And nothing stays the same I'm still hungry for love Chorus So you gotta tell me baby Cause I really wanna know Yeah you gotta tell me baby Should I stay or go? When there was nothing to do There were three ways to escape: sex, drugs and rock and roll But now in the materialistic glare With porn and shoes everywhere I don't know how love survives Cause we need to need each other more than our drive For wealth and status to count more than what burns inside And I've been with you so long I'm incomplete without you, you're there in all that I do Chorus So you gotta tell me baby Cause I really need to know Yeah you gotta tell me baby When will your loving show? Line-up: Andy Worthington (lead vocals, electro-acoustic guitar) Richard Clare (electric guitar, backing vocals) Bren Horstead (drums and percussion) Andrew Fifield (flute and harmonica) Louis Sills-Clare (bass)
7.
Equal Rights and Justice For All (Andy Worthington) Once upon a time we had no protection From every tyrant with an axe to grind They could throw us in a dungeon And we could only hope they'd change their mind Then 800 years ago in England The barons changed the rules of the game They made King John introduce habeas corpus And tyranny would never be the same Chorus And that's why we're calling for Equal rights and justice for all (x2) But since the start of the "war on terror" The rules have changed, our leaders have said Some have been subjected to rendition and torture And some have ended up extra-judicially dead And for the prisoners at Guantánamo Not held as PoWs or charged with a crime The court of appeals shut down the litigation After the Supreme Court ruled they had habeas rights Chorus (repeat) Guantánamo found an echo in England In the arbitrary detention of terror suspects Held in maximum-security prisons Or under a form of house arrest Held on the basis of secret evidence That is only discussed in a secret court They never get to hear the allegations against them But we claim to respect the rule of law Chorus (repeat) Line-up: Andy Worthington (lead vocals, electro-acoustic guitar) Richard Clare (electric guitar, backing vocals) Bren Horstead (drums and percussion) Andrew Fifield (flute and harmonica) Louis Sills-Clare (bass)
8.
Close Guantánamo (Andy Worthington) They said they were the worst of the worst But they didn't know a thing about them They said that they were captured on the battlefield But most of them were bought for bounties They took them to a place outside the law In a bay that they stole from Cuba They said they had no rights at all As they tore up all their laws and treaties You cannot claim to respect the law And treat people this way And after all the torture and abuse It's time to make it go away Chorus: Close Guantánamo, Close Guantánamo (x2) When they didn't know what they wanted them to know They introduced "enhanced interrogation" They played them music as loud as it would go In isolation and as sleep deprivation And when they broke them and they made them lie About themselves and their fellow prisoners They had the nerve to hold their heads up high And call this shame and this disgrace a success You cannot claim to respect the law And treat people this way And after all the torture and abuse It's time to make it go away Chorus: Close Guantánamo, Close Guantánamo (x2) Obama promised to close the prison for good On his second day in office But Republicans resisted his plans And he lacked the political will to do it So as the years drag on and on And the men still held get older and iller Endless imprisonment without charge or trial Is what it always was - a form of torture And now the future’s looking bleaker again With Donald Trump and his dystopian views So we must tell him there’s no future For this place of torture and abuse Chorus: Close Guantánamo, Close Guantánamo (x2) Line-up: Andy Worthington (lead vocals, electro-acoustic guitar) Richard Clare (electric guitar, backing vocals) Bren Horstead (drums and percussion) Andrew Fifield (flute and harmonica) Louis Sills-Clare (bass)
9.
River Run Dry (Andy Worthington) When winter froze up the heart of the city Oh my love sailed away for the sun I sat alone in the shuttered museum I sat alone and I polished my gun And in the shrine I built for her memory I surrounded her portrait with trophies of war But every arrow of love shot in hatred Kept turning forever to nevermore Chorus Oh how can it be so monotonous? How can the river run dry? But trying too hard to hold on to someone Leaves nothing but lies in your eyes I met her down where the refugees wander Hot with anger and cold with ennui Where past and future are ancient delusions And life is an echo eternally brief Without a word to express our misgivings We take our time and we put it to bed But the morning after what started so harmless Winds up speechless and sick in the head Chorus (repeat) The midnight bells toll another new daytime The drunken sailors are far from the sea Ducking down alleyways far from the jailers Who jangle their handcuffs and forget all their dreams Me I sit at my window Calm inside the cascading rain That falls like a cool benediction Smoothing away the furrows of friction Gently laughing at contradiction Till the river flows again Line-up: Andy Worthington (lead vocals, electro-acoustic guitar) Richard Clare (electric guitar, backing vocals) Bren Horstead (drums and percussion) Andrew Fifield (flute and harmonica) Louis Sills-Clare (bass)
10.
When He Is Sane (Richard Clare) When your life is on the rise again See a picture on your shelf Find that things will always be the same Just a step beyond all help (x2) Chorus Let me out, let me in Falling slowly a voice begins It threatens gently, delusions fear Will always haunt his inner ear He’ll end it now when he is sane Doesn’t want that hell again Death is simple, death is safe Unless his voices follow to the grave Time to think is time to fall again Now he’s getting deeper in At the party no one leaves but then No one you could call a friend (x2) Chorus Let me alone, I’m so alone Where’s the life that I have known? There’s nothing about me it doesn’t know It’s never going to let me go He’ll end it now when he is sane Doesn’t want that hell again Death is simple, death is safe Unless his voices follow to the grave Verse 1 (repeat) Line-up: Richard Clare (lead vocals, electric guitar) Andy Worthington (backing vocals, electro-acoustic guitar) Bren Horstead (drums and percussion) Andrew Fifield (flute and harmonica) Louis Sills-Clare (bass) The cover image shows 'Sick mood at sunset. Despair' (detail) by Edvard Munch (1892).

about

The second album by The Four Fathers, a militant, melodic rock and roots reggae band, based in Lewisham, in south east London, contains ten original songs — eight by lead singer Andy Worthington, a journalist and activist, and two by Richard Clare. At the heart of the album is contemporary protest music — songs of resistance to war, police violence, Guantánamo, austerity, greed and the housing crisis.

In December 2017, marking six months since the entirely preventable Grenfell Tower fire that killed 71 people, The Four Fathers released 'Grenfell' on video, a song Andy wrote remembering the victims and calling for accountability. The video is here: youtu.be/BLehKWOhMyY
And on Facebook here: www.facebook.com/fourfatherslondon/videos/1864445086917529/

credits

released November 27, 2017

The Four Fathers are:

Andy Worthington (lead vocals, electro-acoustic guitar)
Richard Clare (electric guitar, backing vocals)
Bren Horstead (drums and percussion)
Andrew Fifield (flute and harmonica)
Louis Sills-Clare (bass)

Recorded and mixed at Perry Vale Studios by Pat Collier.

Reviews

"Music of our times"
Diana Coleman, USA

"The voices of decency crying out in the wilderness"
Beverly Spicer, USA

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The Four Fathers London, UK

Militant, melodic rock & roots reggae band, based in SE London, mostly playing original protest music. Journalist and activist Andy Worthington (lead vocals, electro-acoustic guitar), Richard Clare (electric guitar, vocals), Bren Horstead (drums, percussion), Andrew Fifield (flute, harmonica), Paul Rooke (bass). ... more

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