‘Let’s Kick Out The Tories (For Once & For All)’ has been rewritten and re-recorded for the General Election campaign ahead. Fresh from t’shed this morning, you can stream/download at:

https://joesolomusic.bandcamp.com/album/lets-kick-out-the-tories-for-once-for-all-3

The lyric reflects my anger at a government which puts ideology and the settling of its own internal arguments before the welfare of the people it was elected to represent. They have behaved shamelessly and the havoc wreaked on ordinary folk up and down this land is unforgivable.

Here’s the lyric:

Let’s kick out the Tories for once and for all
Come brothers and sisters and answer the call
Put your cross in that box, play your part in their fall
And let’s kick out the Tories for once and for all

The future is coming, and it’s coming fast
Let’s make Food Bank Britain a thing of the past
Put hope and compassion in all that we do
Build a land for the many and not just the few

Chorus

“Austerity’s over!” The lies are well-drilled
Tell that to the people those policies killed
Out here in the real world, it’s not just a game
So rise up for our neighbours who died in its name

Chorus

Cowards may flinch now, and traitors may sneer
And the fair weather marchers may all disappear
But in a world cast in darkness let us be the light
In the fight of our lives be the life of the fight

Chorus

Sing it, shout it, share it.

We need to get this job done.

New song.

Written Saturday, recorded Sunday.

About the dangerous path we are on when we exploit the fault line between one half of the population and the other to score political points.

Hate Will Tear Us Apart

If something’s come from all of this
I pray the lesson’s learned
So that future generations
See the bridges that we burned
Just led to anger, fear and hatred
And a desperate need to blame
And I hope that looking back on this
We hang our heads in shame

See love will build you bridges
Hate will build you walls
Love will help you off your knees
Hate will let you fall
Love will heal division
Put the hope back in your heart
But hate
Hate will tear us apart
Again
Hate
Hate will tear us apart

I hope the schoolkid told to ‘Go Home!’
Sees we’re not all bad out here
That those of faith don’t go to pray
Their heads bowed down in fear
Or them who use their words as weapons
When they take the stand
Can one day find forgiveness
For the blood that’s on their hands

Love will build you bridges
Hate will build you walls
Love will help you off your knees
Hate will let you fall
Love will heal division
Put the hope back in your heart
But hate
Hate will tear us apart
Again
Hate
Hate will tear us apart

Listen here:

https://joesolomusic.bandcamp.com/track/hate-will-tear-us-apart

It has been a struggle keeping all the plates spinning, but the Autumn is finally coming into focus.

On Monday September 30th I’m heading over to Leeds to record two songs with the mighty Commoners Choir. One will go on each of two releases planned for early next year.

The first is a reissue of the now sold-out ‘No Pasaran’ album which will feature four bonus tracks including an acapella version of the title track; and the second an EP of Pete Seeger songs called ‘We Shall Overcome’ which I’ll be selling to raise money for just that.

And WSO is my next port of call after that. Thursday 3rd October I’m playing Robb Johnson’s Railway Roots in Portslade; Saturday I’m in first Leeds and then Wakefield; and Sunday it’s the annual Hatfield Brigade recording session in Stainforth. In between, on the Friday, Rebekah Findlay is bringing her fiddle to t’shed to sprinkle some magic dust on the recordings.

As if that wasn’t enough, on Sunday October 13th we’re assembling a very special choir of relatives of the Hull International Brigade volunteers to make sure their voices are on the ‘No Pasaran’ reissue too. I’ll be recording them on ‘To Die With Your Fist In The Sky’ and it will be a very special song as a result, as it nanechecks all their family members.

On top of that there’s Lithium Joe rehearsals…

Followed by some blinders out there on the road, so watch this space.

The two new CDs will be released January/February and then work starts on a 3CD compilation and songbook.

Can’t wait.

Tickets are now available for the Lithium Joe gig at the Adelphi in Hull on Sunday December 1st.

We play twice that weekend in what will be our first shows in almost 20 years, and I can’t wait.

Both gigs are for We Shall Overcome, with Saturday at The Station Hotel, Ashton-under-Lyne raising funds to help Pauline Town battle homelessness in Greater Manchester; and Sunday’s ticket money will all go to Hull Help For Refugees.

Tickets for the Adelphi gig are available from:

Home

But be quick. They went on sale Sunday night and half are gone already!

I also did an interview with Nick Quantrill which you can read here:

Welcome back to Joetown

In the meantime there is a LOT of solo mischief to get through first…

Had a truly incredible day at Wigan Diggers Festival yesterday. After a week of the worst of this country I saw the best, and it fully recharged my batteries for the struggles ahead. Great spirit, great people and great performances. What more can you ask?

There were fantastic sets, with Attila The Stockbroker, Darren Poyzer and Jess Silk being personal highlights, but headliners The Men They Couldn’t Hang put in one of the best shifts of their 35 year career last night and just blew us all away. I’m slightly biased as a teenage dream came true when I was invited on stage to sing ‘Ghosts Of Cable Street’, one of the most important songs in my life, and one I consider among the best ever written. What a moment. Truly unforgettable.

There were others too. I was officially there on ceremonial duties to hand my We Shall Overcome Big Sis, Pauline Town, this year’s Gerrard Winstanley Gold Spade Award for outstanding contribution to Socialism. A lot of famous names have won this accolade, but there can be no-one more deserving of it than this incredible warrior for the downtrodden and the dispossessed. To get the square singing ‘One Life At A Time’ and to hand it over was very special indeed.

A festival is made by an awful lot of hard work behind the scenes, and I want to pay tribute to the committee who set the tone every year with their kindness, their selflessness, their hospitality and their solidarity. When you are welcomed and looked after as a performer you take the stage with a skip in your step; when you are welcomed, respected and valued as an audience you generate a spirit in the crowd that artists tap into. It becomes a two way street and the atmosphere slowly builds through the day. It takes a great band, like The Men They Couldn’t Hang to then make the kind of magic we witnessed last night, but it exists in the first place thanks to the year-long hard graft of the Diggers Committee and the sound and lighting staff who make the whole thing tick. Respect comrades ✊

Right. Stockton today. Best get ready.

La lucha continua.

We Shall Overcome #WSO2019 takes place over the weekend of October 4/5/6.

At least the main thrust does.

Since the turn of the year activists and organisers have been badging their gigs WSO and raising help for those who need it, whenever and wherever that need is greatest.

It really is that easy.

You can build your own event, or you can badge up something which already exists; if you’re a band on tour you can ask for donations at that weekend’s gigs, or rattle the bucket the whole way round.

It doesn’t even have to be music. We have had poetry and spoken word, history walks, art auctions, lectures, snooker tournaments, boxing nights, battle of the bands, bake-offs……we have done the lot and it was all amazing.

There have been more than 1000 since October 2015, and each has raised help for food banks, soup kitchens, homeless outreach, crisis centres, refugee support, youth projects; basically wherever help is most needed on the streets of your town.

We are NOT a charity. We are a ramshackle alliance of people who aren’t prepared to sit and watch others suffer while we have it in our power to help. We don’t collect donations centrally, everything raised stays where it is and goes straight to the grassroots in the town who raised it.

We Shall Overcome is a metaphorical banner to march under. We help give your local gig a national identity and we help promote it. The scale of our collective efforts gives us all a sense of belonging and a sense of solidarity with like-minded people the four corners of the UK. It gives us a political voice, and it empowers others who may have felt they could not change things and now see they can.

And we can.

We all can.

Those 1000+ gigs have raised food, cash, warm clothing, footwear, tents, toiletries, sleeping bags and sanitary towels to an estimated total of £450,000; and from the first tin of beans to the last 20p piece, it ALL mattered.

It mattered because every last penny says we are not beaten and we will fight til they lose.

JOIN US! BRING A GIG TO THE PARTY!!

Incredible day at Peterloo March for Democracy in Manchester and a massive thank you to the organisers for putting together a blinder to remember the slaughter of Working Class men, women and children on the 16th August 1819.

I was running on empty after last night’s gig in Bradford and two hours kip, but I was soon energised by the trip to pick up Pauline Town and drop off donations from gigs up and down the land. When I arrived at 10.15am Big Sis had already made 50 sarnies for her homeless family. Puts things in perspective don’t it?

Great to march in with Ian Hodson, Sarah Woolley and Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union – BFAWU comrades, together with the amazing folks of Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign and the equally brilliant company of Lesbians and Gay Men Support the Miners. Our procession was so cool that if we hadn’t already been stopping the traffic, we would definitely have stopped the traffic 😂😂😂

Great to arrive in Albert Square in the shadow of Manchester’s incredible City Hall and see so many comrades from up and down the land. Special respect reserved for the Bolton comrades who had marched 12 miles with their banner to be there.

Loved speaking to so many brilliant people and singing from the FBU fire engine, looking out across a sea of smiling faces and banners.

Even the tiny number of fascists who shamelessly came to disrupt an event remembering the slaughter of people whose Class they claim to represent, couldn’t dampen proceedings. We all know if this was 1819 they would have been dressed in the uniform of the Yeomanry murdering for the rich instead of fighting for their own. Same as it ever was.

Right. Must sleep now.

Before I go though, as Pauline and me walked back to the car she stopped to buy a homeless man a sarnie and drink. She was 8 miles from home, way off anyone else’s beaten path, and yet she still knew him by name.

Proud to call her my friend.

Glasgow I f***ing love you.

Phenomenal night at #LoveGlasgowHateRacism with amazing people from all over this wonderful world.

Absolutely blinding sets from Mick Hargan & Andy McBride, The Twistettes and I’ve said before but I’ll say it again, The Wakes playing their hometown is f***ing euphoric!!

Fantastic to see Chip Hamer and Nadia Drews represent Poetry on the Picket Line after nine hours on a train; and Tony Kinsella, soaked to the bone after being caught in a Glasgow squall, loving every second of the night with a great big grin on his face.

Loved meeting the legend that is Richard Jobson too. An absolute gent and a blinding compere.

Big shout out to Glasgow St Pauli comrades for putting the night together and for doing such damn fine work helping Scottish Refugee Council, United Glasgow FC and the wider fight against racism, fascism, bigotry and intolerance.

Big shout out also for Safe Gigs for Women and the work they are doing up and down the land.

…..and to Dave Griffiths for making a nine hour round-trip pass in the blink of an eye.

Right. Recording today, We Shall Overcome Special of The Joe Solo Show tomorrow, and next weekend I’m at Shuttle Shuffle Festival. 17th – 18th August 2019 on Saturday and Peterloo March for Democracy on Sunday.

World won’t change itself ✊❤️👊