The Land, the Bread, and the People - 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.

Another armchair economist playing our life into a mess, what you know about poverty you learned in a book. Think you're really qualified to mouth off and theorize about the fears you've never even felt. Time's past to button up, taste the fare on which they sup and tighten your own belt. Get in line with us a while, see ya humbly watch your child's health held in balance by the whim of the system. Between Cosette and the privileged few A fat dog chokes down more than he can chew A poor land's labours are a rich land's gain Little Oliver lives again The red scare has come and gone, a temporarily peaceful dawn finds us lost without a villain. When the free market reigns supreme will Lazarus cheer and scream or will the new bosses' wage be the same? What's it mean to buy and own when all is God's and God's alone, does a father feed half his children? Our glory is indeed our shame if our comfort breeds on others' pain. This feast would be better if it wasn't so lonely. Theologies of liberation formed by mother's desperation, the church condemns but offers little else. Brother sun and sister moon hear a starving child's tune thanking God for all His goodness. Across the seas the bitter mutter behind ivy walls and drawn shutters they plot to keep their own. Moths and worms around us gather, a slow wrath descends a ladder. Mercy received in the measure it was given. Holy Father we all want bread, both from heaven and your fields so green. I know your grace is man's first need, but I can no longer hold the pain I've seen. I am my brother's keeper and that I'll always be. I'll not turn my back be he stranger of blood and embrace a life of greed. I am my sister's keeper and that I've always been. Every day I've left her out in the streets