SoNG 009 "Revolution Talk"

Video: Seneca Army Depot main gate, August 9, 1983 - Women's Video Collective
Music: Helen and Hershe, Peace Camp Sings, 1987 - Produced by Sorrel Hays and Marilyn Ries

REVOLUTION TALK
by Average Dyke Band, 1985


"The Average Dyke Band sprang up at the camp in the summer of 1985. The theory we put into action was that songs, singing and musical instrumentation were not the domain of an exclusive, talented few. We had found that far too many women fall silent musically because somewhere along the way they were told they didn't have a good voice, couldn't carry a tune, couldn't keep a beat. The ADB, then, was the musical counterpart to the camp's consensus process philosophy and practice - every woman's voice would be heard. We were inclusive, we were average, and we had a damn good time. Revolution Talk was one of the first songs we wrote."
- hershe Michele


You talk of revolution, I wonder what you see.
Did you read it in their history books or watch it on TV?
The only revolution this world has ever seen is the little man against the big man and they're all men to me.

They sell you constitution, I wonder what you know.
It's the white man taking power everywhere he goes.
They came over shouting "Freedom!" and grabbing with both hands with massacres and treaties to cage a sacred land.

Jodi tells her story she's been raped five times
and Estelle with their shock treatments fucking with her mind.
I hold their pain close to me it shakes me in the night.
Sometimes it makes me desperate, sometimes it helps me fight.

You study feminist theory in your universities
and fill your mind with book reviews and bibliographies.
When your sister calls for you are you really there
or is your sense of sisterhood just rhetoric in the air?

You talk of revolution, I've got a lot to say
of day-to-day rebellion in women-loving ways.
Whether we're holding hammers or cutting army wire
I know the wheels are turning like circles 'round the fire.

The Average Dyke Band, July 1983, from left, Gail, Liza, Woody, hershe, Helen, Jeanne-Michele, Luna (in back), robin, Myke, Fish.