Easterhouse - cargo of souls, 1986

"Easily the best political rock band of the 80s with jangly guitars and leftist politics! Through my teenage years my choice of music was pretty much an exclusive diet of fast and noisy hardcore punk rock... but there were a handful of exceptions. I loved a bit of folk music. My Grandads Wolfe Tones albums I still cherish along with my Mammy’s Johnny Cash ones but I also fell in love with bands like The Kinks, The Band Of Holy Joy and New F.A.D.S who i just liked the music. One band though that has been a constant for me throughout my life has been Easterhouse. Virtually unknown to the outside world their brand of cool indie guitar rock and absolute unashamed working class communist polemic as well as support for the Irish republican movement reached to the very core of me and I’ve been listening to them ever since"

Easterhouse - lenin in zurich, 1986

 

"As he did every morning, on 15 March 1917, Russian refugee Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, also known as Lenin, put on his threadbare coat and the sturdy shoes that cobbler Titus Kammerer had made for him. He and his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, were living in Kammerer’s home at Spiegelgasse 14, Zurich, as lodgers in a small second-floor room." 

 

In this Lonely Place
You could sink without a trace
Just another face
In a crowd of faceless people
Such a lonely man
Difficult to get along with
All the hours that he spends
Sitting in the Dark Library

Endless arguments
And the endless separations
There's no other way
You must fight until you get it right
When the fight for survival
Is the fight for a principle
If the principle dies
You don't have a chance

Easterhouse - out on your own, 1986

"Easterhouse’s original incarnation — a Manchester quintet led by argumentative brothers Andy (vocals/lyrics) and Ivor (guitar) Perry — turned strident leftist rhetoric into bracing, cathartic music before predictably imploding over ideological conflicts. The band’s demise was a shame, since Easterhouse seemed well on its way towards perfecting a brand of explicitly political rock that compromised neither music nor message."

"Here Comes an Union leader with a Brand New Deal
To save the industry talking profitability
Profitability
What does that mean to me?
Whether a profit or a loss
I'm just working for the boss
It's only foolishness to speak your massive words "

Easterhouse - whistling in the dark, 1986

"Ruminations on the contradictions inherent in a revolutionary communist band’s affiliation with a multinational entertainment megalith were put on hold when Easterhouse’s initial lineup fell apart not long after Contender‘s US release. Ivor Perry and drummer Gary Rostock briefly (one single on UK Rough Trade) reemerged in a new band called the Cradle, with ex-Aztec Camera/Smiths guitarist Craig Gannon."

Easterhouse - nineteen sixty-nine,1986

"Named after the Easterhouse area of Glasgow, the band was formed in Stretford, near Manchester by Ivor Perry and Andy Perry (...). Perry's political stance reflected the perspectives of the then active Revolutionary Communist Party, with particular regard to Irish politics."

 

"It seem that I remember
Scattered Shreds of far off days
The savage beat of Soliders fume
On streets of broken glass
That crashed the lie of justice
England brings to foreign lands
The truth came out
Without a doubt
In Nineteen Sixty Nine

[Verse 2]
How many must have thought
That things would work out differently
With Labor men in government
"The workers Own Party"
Who brought out their true colours
And nailed them to the mast
Served the Union Jack
As they always have
In Nineteen Sixty Nine

[Chorus]
You have to draw the Line
Sometimes
And I drew mine
At Laborers home trained "socialists"
The lowest form of hypocrite
Who talk best when the chips are down
Stay Loyal to their King and Crown

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Cargo of Souls

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Whistling in the Dark

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Get Back to Russia

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[Interlude]

[Verse 3]
How desperately they try though
Schemes of treachery and lies
To hide their hands stained
Red with Blood
Of Countless Irish Lives
They talk of "dangerous gunmen"
'The sectarian divide'
And they try to kill the truth behind
Nineteen Sixty Nine

[Chorus]
You have to draw the Line
Sometimes
And I drew mine

As this machine of murder
This system of brutality
At H-Block cells; a concrete fell
To bury the truth alive

[Bridge]

[Verse 4]
No man can serve two masters
This surely is the truth
Your country or your class
When it comes down our kind
Must choose
From Dark chains of Oppression
We must forge ourselves a lesson;
While we are part of this
Then we cannot make ourselves free

[Chorus]
You have to draw the Line
Sometimes
And I drew mine
At Laborers home trained "socialists"
The lowest form of hypocrite
Who talk best when the chips are down
Stay Loyal to their King and Crown

You have to draw the Line
Sometimes
And I drew mine
At Laborers home trained "socialists"
The lowest form of hypocrite"