Video: Andy Worthington’s Band The Four Fathers Play ‘Tory Bullshit Blues’ Unplugged

Yesterday, to coincide with the Conservative Party Conference, at which Jeremy Hunt has been causing anger by telling hard-working lower-paid voters that they need to work harder — like the famously exploited Chinese people, for example — rather than get tax credits to top up their government-defended inadequate pay, I posted ‘Tory Bullshit Blues,’ a new video on the YouTube channel of my band The Four Fathers, which I launched last week with a version of ‘Song for Shaker Aamer,’ about the last British resident in the US prison at Guantánamo, played by myself and my fellow guitarist/singer in the band, Richard Clare.

‘Tory Bullshit Blues’ is my defence of socialism over the selfishness and greed that has typified the Conservative Party since Margaret Thatcher — and it also challenges the racism of UKIP, blaming immigrants, the unemployed and the disabled for the problems caused by the bankers who were responsible for the global economic crash of 2008, but have not been held accountable for their greed and their crimes.

I first released the version of the song by the whole band — a rattling rock and roller — on Soundcloud before the General Election, and it is also featured on the debut album by The Four Fathers, ‘Love and War,’ which we released as a CD in July, and to download (and also as a CD) two weeks ago.

You can buy ‘Tory Bullshit Blues,’ or any of the other original songs on the album, for 60p ($0.93), or more if you wish, or you can buy the whole eight-track album as a download for £4.50 ($7) or on CD, with two extra tracks, for £7 ($10.85). As with ‘Tory Bullshit Blues,’ you can pay more if you wish for any of the songs or for the album.

The album also features four other original songs of mine — Fighting Injustice (a rousing new roots reggae anthem defending the state provision of services like the NHS and opposing the criminal bankers and the greed of the housing crisis), 81 Million Dollars (calling for accountability for those responsible for the US torture program, including the two CIA contractors, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who were paid $81m for implementing the program), Sweet Love and Ever After (a love song) and City of Dreams (a countryish lament for the London destroyed by Margaret Thatcher) — plus Rebel Soldier (the old folk song which I gave the roots reggae treatment many years ago), and Richard’s love song, Sea Shanty for Helena.

Richard and I played the acoustic version of the song at my house on September 19, especially for my friend Todd Pierce, a retired military defense attorney who represented prisoners at Guantánamo, and it was filmed by Todd, along with ‘Song for Shaker Aamer’ and another song that I’ll be making available next week.

Please subscribe to the channel if you want to see more, and in the months to come I expect to make more videos available.

Based in Lewisham, in south east London, The Four Fathers are, as the name suggests, four dads — myself on lead vocals and guitar, Richard Clare on guitar and backing vocals, Bren Horstead on drums and percussion and Andrew Fifield on flute and harmonica — plus, last but by no means least, Louis Sills-Clare, Richard’s son, on bass. Do get in touch if you’re interested in having us play at a venue you run or an event you’re organising.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose debut album, ‘Love and War,’ is available for download or on CD via Bandcamp — also see here). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign, the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.