Friday, August 11, 2006

SoNG: Revolution Talk

Die-In action at the Seneca Army Depot main gate, August 9, 1983.

Revolution Talk
by WEFPJ Average Dyke Band* - Luna, Myke, Twilight, Helen, Hershe
PeHP Source: ADB songsheets 1985-87; Peace Camps Sings Cassette, 1987

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
.

A segment of the Average Dyke Band, July 1985 (from left) Gail, Liza, Woody, hershe, Helen, Jeanne-Michele, Luna (in back), robin (in front), Myke, Fish.


* The Average Dyke Band (ADB) sprang up at the Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace & Justice in the summer of 1985.  The theory they put into action was that songs, singing, and musical instrumentation were not the domain of an exclusive, talented few. They had found that far too many of their sisters fell 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 WEFPJ's consensus process philosophy and practice - every woman's voice would be heard. They were inclusive, they were average, and they had a damn good time.

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