| A new book chronicles the songs of Dave Rogers, longstanding member of the Birmingham Banner theatre — and chronicles 30 years of struggle as well... |
Singing the changes
WORKERS, APR 2005 ISSUE
For the Birmingham Banner Theatre's 30th Anniversary celebrations, a book of songs by Dave Rogers, a leading member of the group, has been published. They are presented as 85 songs of resistance and celebration, spanning over three decades of events. Interspersed between the songs are concise, informative historical accounts of the events recalled in song, together with interviews with workers and photographs
Dave Rogers, a self-proclaimed political activist, wrote most of the songs for political documentary theatre productions. They are stuffed with social purpose and are classified in the book as part of a tradition of political songwriting. The foreword quite correctly defines them as social documents.
From The Housing Game production of 1979 with its demand for publicly owned building departments came The World of Property containing a stark fourth verse:
This is the land of hire and fire, where "skins" are bought and sold
The fit alone can stand the pace, and young men soon are old
For muscle is the currency to earn your daily bread
And craftsmen who are past their prime, they might as well be dead.
In 1980, a production called On The Brink examined the plight of workers in the Birmingham car industry at a time when Michael Edwards at British Leyland was pushing through his rationalisation plans and the song Life On The Track explores the pressures of working life there. We reproduce the first two verses:
Life on the track's a battlefield, life on the track's a war
From the same production Rogers wrote a clever song, Evening Mail Blues, attacking the Birmingham Evening Mail, a local newspaper well known for its contempt for organised workers. This five-verse song opens with:
You fight all day to earn your pay and then come back for more
Day after day you face that track, with never an end in sight
The only thing you learn in there is never forget to fight.
You clock on in the morning and switch on with the track
Human body, robot brain, they'll work you 'til you crack
You have to fight to hold your own, where speed up is the creed
You face an iron master, Messrs Avarice and Greed.
We bring you all the latest news, served upon a plate
Then the chorus sums up ironically:
With all the best ingredients, to tempt and titillate
We process and we purify and safely sterilise
To satisfy the interests of private enterprise.
Evening Mail, Evening Mail
Later the succeeding choruses rise in a crescendo of hyperbole about the paper's disregard for the truth:
We always tell the truth, we never ever fail
Evening Mail
Evening Mail, Evening Mail
In the Reign of Pig's Pudding was a two-man play produced in 1989 which dealt with the growth of the "I'm alright Jack" Thatcherite ideology in the 1980s. The play included a bitter, poignant song entitled Monday Morning Rain. The last two verses read:
We could turn a puff of wind into a roaring gale
Evening Mail, Evening Mail
We could turn a little fish into a killer whale.
Evening Mail, Evening Mail
We could wash the crime squad a whiter shade of pale
Evening mail, Evening Mail
We will do most anything to make another sale.
Sick of trailing grimy streets, there's no job for me
In 1992, Rogers penned a charming song about when his daughter left home for the first time entitled Not My Little Baby Any More.
Sick of queueing at the dole, no security
Sick of all the broken dreams, will I work again?
Looking out my window, Monday morning rain.
Wish I was a blackbird, I'd spread my wings and fly
Wish I was an old man, the sooner I would die
Wish my heart could open and empty all the pain
Looking out my window, Monday morning rain.
In 1993, Belly of The Beast was written in much more metaphorical style, examining the beast of capitalism from the vantage point of three women blockaded in Trentham Colliery. It starts
So we lie in the belly of the mighty beast
and ends:
And hear the groans of the earth beneath
And wonder why as we lie inside
The beast still lives but the pit must die
The beast still lives but the pit must die
So we stand in the belly of the mighty beast
In 1998, recycling the old Ray Davies of The Kinks song, Rogers attacked the politics of Blair in Dedicated Follower of Thatcher. A one-verse sampler gives a flavour of the whole:
And hear the groans of the earth beneath
But there'll be no peace on the great seam bed
There'll be no peace 'til the beast is dead
There'll be no peace 'til the beast is dead.
He met the rich, he took his axe
He cut their corporation tax
Because he's such a carer, to them he's even fairer
'Cos he's a dedicated follower of Thatcher.
• Singing the Changes, Songs by Dave Rogers for Banner Theatre. Bread Books. Editor: Doug Nicholls. 200pp. ISBN 09542112-2-7. Price £12.50 + £2.50 p&p.
