95 lines
3.3 KiB
Plaintext
95 lines
3.3 KiB
Plaintext
Date: Thu 07 Jan 88 15:43:34
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From: L.a. Hussey (on 161/93)
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To: All
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Subj: Song
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Lately I've been seeing an outrageous escalation of figures from the
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burning times, now we're up to 9.5 million! And there seems to be some
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sort of perverse "we're more persecuted than the Jews" mentality behind it.
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Completely ignoring the fact that the burning times killed some large
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number of people over 4 centuries, where the Nazi Holocaust killed its
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millions in a matter of 5 YEARS. Also, I've been pissed off lately by
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Charlie Murphey's "Burning Times" song, which has propagated the 9 million
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figure and has in it lines like "The Earth is a Witch/ and the Men still
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burn Her". So, in the good old-fashioned tradition of lectures set to
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music, I offer the following verses. I need to see how many people they
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offend before I sing them at Esotericon.
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BURNING TIMES
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The songs are sung to rouse our anger
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Of martyred witches gone to the fire
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But what is served by righteous singing
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When all we do is stew in our ire?
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Nine million dead in four hundred years
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More in that time simply died of disease.
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Why do we dwell on long-passed dead
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When we are alive in times like these?
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cho1: Rise up, Witches, throw off your masks
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And cease crying guilt for ancient crimes;
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Earth and all her children need us,
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For all face now the Burning Times.
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In the face of that hostile power,
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How did the old knowledge stay alive?
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How do we have a Craft to practise?
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Our ancestors knew how to fight and survive!
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How do we honour our blessed dead?
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Slavery threatens all but the few!
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We must teach their cunning ways;
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Everyone needs the skills they knew.
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cho: Rise up, Witches, gather your strength,
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And let your power spread and climb;
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Earth and all her children need us,
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For all face now the Burning Times.
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I'll not cast off science's works
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Witches all forces to Will can bend.
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I'll not accuse, for war and waste,
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Some patriarchy of faceless Men.
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Men do not cast the only votes;
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Women alone do not demonstrate.
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Rather than shut out half the race,
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Who, if not we, will change that state?
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(cho)
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I will not blame a Father's Church --
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Blame and guilt are Their tools, not mine.
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And even in the shuls and churches
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Allies there will I seek and find!
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I will not answer hate with fear;
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Nor with a smug, cheek-turning love;
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I will not answer hate with rage;
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By strength alone will I not be moved!
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(cho)
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I will not hide in my sacred grove --
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The factories and cities yet ring me about.
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I will not climb my ivory tower --
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The real world exists though I shut it out.
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I will not work for Church nor State
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Who serve themselves while they serve us lies.
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Nor only for my Witchen kin
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But for the family of all alive!
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(cho)
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So if rebellion means to fight
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A State lost sight of why it was built,
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If heresy's to reject a Church
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That rules with force or fear or guilt,
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Then let us all be rebels proud,
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And shameless heretics by creed!
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A tyrant's hand subjects the Earth
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More heretic rebels are what She needs!
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(cho)
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copyright 1988, Leigh Ann Hussey
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