Redhands - 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.

In the end the revolution veers and fades. Power corrupts, no future is built with tools of hate. The march, the cause just another sham. Everything rots in the hands of man. Comrades get slim and few when they don't meet up when they ain't you. The red hands of reaction and a lack of clarity caused by the disconnection of belief from all reality brought on the closing of our minds to hope and purity and left us hanging from our necks from a bent society. Politically completely free beyond all authority, we'd still be draped in chains called responsibility. Bound, gagged, and tortured beyond all amnesty a liberty no man can touch brings on our release. Try any point of view, what we are remains. Our choices and our paths are fewer than they seem. In the end the revolution veers and fades. Only what's eternal will pass thru the flames. Take us away to a place of purity. Does a love for people mean a lack of clarity about what makes us clean and what brings decay? Lead us out of this bloody night and show us your way.