The CD of The Four Fathers' third album comes with a full colour 8-page booklet by drummer Brendan Horstead featuring all the lyrics.
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about
A singalong anthem of resistance to the EU referendum in June 2016, in which, by a slim majority, those who could be bothered to vote backed a toxic call for the UK to leave the EU, ‘I Want My Country Back (From the People Who Wanted Their Country Back)’ was written in the summer of 2016, recorded in July 2018, and initially released as an online single in March 2019, and it has been a regular and popular feature of our live sets.
At the time, it was unarguably evident that Brexit was an unmitigated disaster, as the UK began its descent into racist isolation and irrelevance, and Theresa May tried and failed to deliver the undeliverable — a Brexit that didn’t cripple the British economy — but, after its release, the situation became immeasurably worse.
When the execrable self-serving narcissist Boris Johnson took ver from Theresa May, and presided over a General Election that he won via the inane and unfulfillable promise that he would ‘Get Brexit Done’, he filled his cabinet with dangerous anti-democratic ideologies who saw Brexit as an opportunity to conceive of the UK as a tabula rasa, a blank slate, onto which all of their darkest authoritarian impulses could be projected, including a monstrous clampdown on the right to protest, and efforts to criminalise the very existence of refugees, a situation that didn’t improve when Johnson was deposed, briefly replaced by Liz Truss, a car-crash in human form, and, finally, the dim-witted Rishi Sunak.
At the time of the album’s release, the wreckage Brexit inflicted on the UK — both economically, and ethically — has still not been adequately addressed, and no one, it seems, should be recommended to hold their breath in the hope that the new Labour government led by Keir Starmer will do anything substantial to take our country back from the dreadful legacy of racist isolationism.
lyrics
I Want My Country Back (From the People Who Wanted Their Country Back) (Andy Worthington)
It was just after the summer solstice when it should have been sunny and bright
But a darkness fell over everything, extinguishing all light
With invented urgency the isolationists seized the day
Chorus
I want my country back from the people who wanted their country back, oh yeah (x2)
Up and down the country, everywhere hope has gone
Snuffed out by capital’s toxic bloom killing the towns one by one
People spoke of sovereignty and forgot that patriotism only leads to war
Chorus (repeat)
So now in Brexit Britain with racism on the rise
With EU nationals treated as pawns in our economic suicide
The only light in the darkness is that Brexit will destroy whoever makes it real
Chorus (repeat)
Line-up:
Andy Worthington (lead vocals, guitar)
Richard Clare (guitar, backing vocals)
Bren Horstead (drums and percussion)
Mark Quiney (bass)
Andrew Fifield (harmonica)
credits
from Songs of Loss and Resistance,
released September 20, 2024
Written by Andy Worthington.
Recorded at Equator Studios with Charlie Hart, July 2018 and February 2019.
Cover image by Brendan Horstead.
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) and Andrew Fifield (flute, harmonica), sometimes supported by beatboxer The Wiz-RD (Andy's son Tyler)....more
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