Yes! More NMA ;) Takes me back...

Finally know the artist and title of this track - been hearing it around for years! Thanks Bill :)

Love their sound!

not good..... Nor nostalgic

I wish I'd heard this in 1989 ... love it now, would have loved it then.

RP playing New Model Army!!! Great pull Bill. This entire album is incredible and one of my top 10 of all time.

Love hearing this tune. NMA have a special place in my heart. They have, of course, a HUGE discography. I would love to hear more. Small Town England for example.

Always find myself turning up the end of this song....

siskinbob wrote:

I don't want to get into a long barney about the rights and wrongs of travellers and encampments, as that would go on for years without any resolution. (I can remember such barneys from my childhood in Ireland, 40 years ago, when 'tinkers' were folk devils.) This song is plainly about the 'peace convoys' of the 80s which were ruthlessly suppressed by coppers, culminating in the infamous Battle of the Beanfield where without question the cops initiated the aggro, beating convoy members indiscriminately, confiscating vehicles and generally acting like terrorists. As was the point - following that 'battle', and the anti-convoy laws passed by the Tories in its aftermath, such convoys and encampments disappeared, to be replaced by the rave scene. This was well documented in a recent BBC4 documentary " Festivals Britannia " which included graphic film footage of cops beating the shit out of folk. You probably figure they deserved it - I couldn't comment - but they sure as hell didn't start it.

The irony is that the convoys were a good refuge for the homeless and the damaged, who otherwise would be hanging about sink estates and being anti-social and bothering the good burghers of the town who wail and gnash their teeth at the 'underclass'. Now, if you're on the dole or homeless or mentally ill you have, quite literally, nowhere to go. But hey, it's a free country, right?

Mosay wrote:
Back before time began Justin Sullivan (NMA's frontman) used to tour under the name "Slade the Leveller". If you ask a random NMA fan they will probably relate a story about how he had something to do with helping the Levellers get started.

I have no idea if this is true or not.

TerryS wrote:
Folks I know were on the direct receiving end of the misuse, disrespect and destruction that these so called "travellers" perpetrate. It isn't the police that don't want them around its the ordinary people that suffer as a result of their presence. My friends had business premises broken into and trashed because these so called travellers wanted access to water. They trashed car parks leaving both human and animal excrement and broken glass and general garbage all over the area. Their presence in the car parks was a deterrent to the use by customers so trade was impacted.

It takes only a short period of time for these people to move in yet it costs ordinary folks thousands of pounds and many man hours of effort to get these people removed and to repair the damage they caused.

The police are only involved when the proper legal instruments are in place. The police do not, in most cases, initiate the violence but they do respond in kind.

TerryS wrote:



Yes, there is a tragically large disparity between the romantic image of the traveller lifestyle and its tawdry actuality.

We follow the taillights out of the city
Moving in a river of red
As the colours fade away from the dusky sunset
We roll for the darkness ahead

Chorus:
We are old, we are young, we are in this together
Vagabonds and children, prisoners forever
With pulses a-raging and eyes full of wonder
Kicking out behind us again

Night-time City Beat the radio is calling
The lost and lonely in vain
Out here we are running for the wide open spaces
The road-smell after the rain

Chorus:
We are old, we are young, we are in this together
Vagabonds and children, prisoners forever
With pulses a-raging and eyes full of wonder
Kicking out behind us again

And watching as a boy alone at the quayside
The ships loading cargo in the night
Their names all calling to faraway places
The years go past, the miles go by
And still this childhood romance will not die

Another band without the (full) success they had deserved!

scoote wrote:
My thoughts exactly!!

fredriley wrote:

Having lived with Gypsy encampment 500 yards from my front door for years, there were certain reasons for the police not to want them around. Not that anything excuses the excesses, but they did spring from that reality.

This is very likely about what the media called, disparagingly, ' new age travellers ' back in the 80s. The cops actively repressed traveller convoys in the late 80s, the apotheosis being the brutal ' battle of the beanfield ' where peaceful travellers had seven shades of sh1t beaten out of them by the cops. The Thatcher regime shortly afterwards passed laws effectively banning travelling convoys.

I have bought this album ,but have played it very little, perhaps an airing tomorrow.

that HEY!!!!! was a real good indicator to his bandmates that the noodling intro was over...

Mosay wrote:
Historical cousins too, if you know your history of the English Civil War. Politically they share a lot of space with the Levellers, and musically they're in the 'folk rock' space, but they're a feck of a sight angrier (and the Levellers are pretty angry).