red cotton

Lyrics

i'm cutting up her pure white dress, that i dyed red, that i dyed red, i'm putting scraps in cheap tin lockets, what time erases and memory mocks, i'll send them over the ocean foam, right into those gentle european homes, the slave ship "blessing" slipped from liverpool, over the waves the royal navy rules, to go and plunder the kingdom of benin, where certain history ends and shame begins, dahomey traders paid in powder and shot, line up their prisoners and they sell them in lots, they packed them tight inside those coffin ships, and they took them to the brand new world of, auction blocks and whips, i'm cutting up her pure white dress, that i dyed red, that i dyed red, i'm putting scraps in cheap tin lockets, what time erases and memory mocks, i'll send them over the ocean foam, right into those gentle european homes, white is the sheet on your fine linen bed, the blood stained red on each cotton thread, the merchants gather at st. george's hall, to unveil the kneeling slave who is carved upon the wall, picture the scene at the old salt house docks, where they loaded the iron shackles and locks, between a sandstone crocodile, a barrel and a bale, you will see the nameless faces they were offering for sale, so, i sing the praises of god's glory, as a blue cetacean floats in the basement, an elephant on the second storey, and they queue all day to see him, in my american museum, but the lord will judge us with fire and thunder, as man continues in all his blunders, it's only money, it's only numbers, maybe it is time to put aside these fictitious wonders, but man is feeble, man is puny, and if it should divide the union, there is no man that should own another, when he can't even recognise his sister and his brother