Song for Elie - Lyrics - Ballydowse
Ballydowse was a celtic punk rock band from Chicago, Illinois with a rare mix of anarchist and religious ideas infused into their music. Many of the group's members were from the Jesus People USA commune. In addition to the group's Mekons Pogues-style Celtic punk influences, the group also draws from world musics such as klezmer and Tibetan throat singing. Ballydowse released two albums both engineered by Steve Albini. The debut was entitled The Land, the Bread, and the People and was a home place for many who found common cause with certain elements of Christianity while rejecting the American right wing bias so prominent in the church at the time. Their second album Fertile Crescent continued this trajectory with a growing Eastern European flavor. The group's political activism over the economic sanctions on Iraq in the 2000s, prison reform, death penalty and the short-comings of capitalism was unique among Christian bands of the time. The group disbanded in 2003.
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i see a fire in the distance mother
my love i see those rising flames
are those the sabbath candles glowing
no my love, but you will rest the same
i haven't seen you since the separation
i watched you pushed along by the crowd
on the train you swore we'd stick together
still i look for you even now
a million judenkinder, the dulling of the stars
barefoot across the crystal nacht but we
can't get thru the bars
where are you now does heaven pay the price
can the one who wipes your tears away
make faith from this ice
unbar the door for i must come in
the kingdom of memory, burrows of the night
i'm no survivor i was not yet born
but i'm drawn like a sacred rite
the past it belongs to you
frozen forever like that lone tattoo
silent before you i can be your tears
but i'm locked outside by six million years
your memories our shield, we will not forget
we will not forget...
schreibt und forschreibt for us
we will not forget
to our hearts we'll clutch each name
we will not forget
