Green Bans

Soundcloud. Written in commemoration of the New South Wales Building Laborers Federation and their campaign of Green Bans, the refusal to build over green space or to build socially and environmentally harmful projects. This radical express of workers taking control over production decisions was made possible by the radically democratic and militant structure and culture built in the BLF by rank and file activists, revolutionaries, and the working class counterculture of their day.  

Em G Bm
In Kelly’s bush I’ll rest my feet, just to watch to morning pass
Em G Bm
Above the harbour’s noises, where the concrete melts away
Em G Bm
In the eucalyptus leaves, hear the kookaburra laugh
Em G D Em
And see the sunrise bring alive, the colors of the bay
I am a navvy now retired, aged like Hunter Valley wine
When I was young and strong as sin, I built up Sydney town
My hands are torn, my knees are worn, my face a map of lines
But I was with the Green Bans, when we laid our hammers down 

Chorus (tune of chorus in Follow Me Up to Carlow): 
G Bm
We’ve laid their halls and raised their walls, we’ve climbed to build their towers tall
G Bm Em
each acre that they’re given, they will take for all it’s worth
G Bm
Eden would be cleared away for flats if they had their way
Em G Em
we’ll build the world we want, when the wretched take the earth

When life’s a cog always in motion, always racing with the rat
No time to bask in joys or sorrows, there’s a bill to pay
The colors wash out of the ocean, and the wren she whistles flat
You lose your songs and rob tomorrow, to get by today
Our fist hard up in exploitation, underneath the builder’s rule
We’d throw a wrench into the works and quickly learn the score
The Building Labor Federation, was our union and our school
Our theory’s writ in brick, and marks of capital we bore

Chorus

The bossman Jenning was so keen to pave up over Kelly’s Green
Flats over the last good place you’d find on Hunter’s Hill
So when the women asked for aid, we told the boss we’d drop our spade
If one tree falls, then every building site is standing still
From Royal Gardens to the Rocks, we had the strength to build or block
For soulless shells of office space, those years were going slow
A hospital or school would pass, or housing for the working class
As laborers and Sydneysiders, planned it from below

Chorus

The bureaucrat and boss the same, united in production’s name
To gut the Sydney local, then a blacklist did impose
Gallagher came with a purge, ordered us all back to work
the Labor Party drove the nails our coffin for to close,
This country’s been strip-mined for profit, ever since they stole the land
the building bosses always push, to take what there is left
We gave to them our sweat and youth, and built for them their city grand
When your rest your feet in Kelly’s Bush, thank the BLF