I Steer A Bristol Slaver

Show of Hands, recognised as one of the finest folk roots acts in the UK, are to release a 2020 version of their classic, thought-provoking song, Bristol Slaver.

Show of Hands @ FROG

www.showofhands.co.uk

In July, some 23 years after the original song appeared on their acclaimed 1997 album Dark Fields, multi award-winning singer songwriter Steve Knightley and multi-instrumentalist Phil Beer will unveil a stunning revamp of the Knightley-penned track. The new version, produced by Rolling Stones collaborator Matt Clifford, who has often played keyboards on Show of Hands’ albums and at the Devon band’s five Royal Albert Hall sell-outs, is a driving, savvy song about the transatlantic slave trade triangle and the key part the city of Bristol played in it – becoming Britain’s premier slaving port by the early 1700s.

Knightley, who has a degree in politics and history, says: “I wrote the song after watching a BBC ‘special' from Bristol Docks that somehow managed to avoid the word ‘slavery’ throughout”. The trade triangle operated from the late 16th to the early 19th century carrying slaves, cash crops and manufactured goods between Europe, West Africa and the Caribbean and American colonies. The succinct lyrics of the song tell the story of a Bristol slave trader “To my house in Clifton / I bring capital from pain / Trinkets to Africa / Slaves to Jamaica / Rum and tobacco back again and again”.

Sung by Knightley, the song also references the Windrush generation. Invited to Britain from the Caribbean colonies after WW2, many settled in the St Paul’s area of Bristol in the late Forties and Fifties. Topical and pertinent, both moving and menacing, the percussive track is accompanied by a powerful new video, created by Kent graphic design studio Stylorouge.

Recognising the recent incident where the bronze statue of prominent Bristol slave trader Edward Colston was toppled by Black Lives Matter protestors and thrown into the harbour, Knightley has added apt closing words to the song: “I will drown / your cold-stone heart / in the ocean”.

Says Knightley: “The song highlights the inescapably shameful but often overlooked history of a city. Hopefully it contributes a little towards redressing the balance and highlights that period. Show of Hands have had many positive connections with Bristol over the years – we have headlined the former Colston Hall, now awaiting a new name, numerous times. On a personal level, my young son’s life was saved by the skills of staff at Bristol Children’s Hospital. It’s a vibrant south west city albeit with a flawed past.”

Bristol Slaver From this house in Clifton I see the ships under sail Through St. Paul’s to the harbour, tied up in the basin lie a dozen floating jails For profit and promotion Oh no no, I steer a Bristol slaver Selling lives across the ocean Oh no no, no man on earth can save you To my house in Clifton I bring capital from pain Trinkets to Africa, slaves to Jamaica Rum and tobacco back again and again For profit and promotion Oh no no, I steer a Bristol slaver Selling lives across the ocean Oh no no, no man on earth can save you Off Cape Verde we lay at anchor, we are crammed from stern to stern Soon we sail to Kingston, torn away from Africa never to return I curse this slaver Oh no no, As we steer towards the West He must sail the seas forever Oh no no, may his spirit never rest We came here in the fifties and I grew up in St. Paul’s Last night I walked through Clifton, there was a voice in the darkness, shadows on the walls For profit and promotion Oh no no, I steer a Bristol slaver Selling lives over the ocean Oh no no, no man on earth can save you For profit and promotion Oh no no, I steer a Bristol slaver Selling lives over the ocean Oh no no, no man on earth can save you I will drown your cold-stone heart in the ocean

»Our President cares an awful lot about statues commemorating officers of the losing side of our civil war, a conflict that occurred before either side of his immigrant family reached our shores. He’s not known for admiring those he calls LOSERS!, and he has no roots in the conflict. My father and I moved from Houston, Texas to Loudoun County Virginia in 1969. My parents had been divorced for some years, but as luck would have it, earlier that year, my mother had secured a job teaching English Literature at Westhampton College, later folded into the University of Richmond, in Richmond Virginia. Leesburg, County seat of Loudoun County, had one of those generic statues of a brave young rebel infantryman on the courthouse lawn. Richmond, where I went to visit my mother every other weekend, had Monument Avenue, a street with statues at the end of every block. I was most fond of the statue of Jeb Stuart, because Stuart wore a cool wide brimmed hat and his horse was raring up. I think the horse with two feet off the ground meant Stuart had died in battle. Stonewall Jackson’s horse, “Traveler,” I think his name was, had one foot raised, signifying that Jackson had died of battle wounds. Robert E. Lee’s statue bored me, horse at a walk, all four feet on the ground. I had ridden from a young age and I knew my gaits. It never occurred to me to even ask why the losers of the war had been awarded posthumous monuments. Mr. Trump’s people had no part in the civil war. His lineage doesn’t make him unfit to be President, his character and basic incompetence do that. But I must wonder why he reveres the rebels so much. Why must their statues stand where they offend so many? Why must we have military bases named after traitors? Why does Trump care so much for statues and so little for living Americans? We living Americans face the greatest health crisis of our time, and the President protects statues.«

»I wrote a song for falling statues, Pull These Statues to the Ground. The statues are only symbols, and whether they are disposed of by local authorities or taken down by members of the public, there's so much more to accomplish. But symbols are important, and taking these statues down is an important part of the process of re-framing the mainstream historical narrative, so that it might someday become an honest one.« »Australia also has a lot of statues of people who both advocated and practiced genocide, such as former NSW governor, Lachlan Macquarie, the British colonist ruler after whom much of Sydney is named after. My friend Stephen Langford was arrested last month for using craft glue to stick a Macquarie quote on the Macquarie statue. I wrote a song, Ballad of Lachlan Macquarie.« David Rovics @ FROG www.davidrovics.com James McMurtry @ FROG www.jamesmcmurtry.com

Photo Credits: (1)-(2) Show of Hands, (3) James McMurtry, (4) David Rovics (unknown/website).

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