‘Refugee Song’ is the second track on Beki’s ‘The Unbereaved’ EP.
Beki: We needed a song to go with The Unbereaved and we were arguing about what it should sound like, I suggested something 1970s Rock based and Paul came up with a riff that sounded like Tony Iommi or Jimmy Page could have written it and the lyrics came very quickly.
There was a lot of stuff in the news at the time about people putting laughing emojis under news stories about refugee children drowning and Britain First were criticising the RNLI for rescuing asylum seekers and the government was milking it to distract the public from the Covid death toll, crumbling economy, struggling NHS, housing crisis etc etc.
Apart from their appalling attitude to drowned children I really can’t abide people who criticise actual heroes like lifeboat crew or firefighters.
I’d been reading about a small percentage of the human population being either psychopaths or sociopaths and I wanted to reference this in the lyrics and I picked the title ‘Refugee Song’ as a nod to Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’.
BUY THE UNBEREAVED/REFUGEE SONG
We’re taking back the borders
Or just obeying orders
Our money flows to a distant shore
And comes back freshly laundered
Psychopaths are laughing
At little children drowning
We’ve all been bent by the three per cent
With the one per cent still counting
Oh oh oh oh What have you done?
No longer European
We’re truly Orwellian
England’s first are England’s worst
Barely human beings
Sociopaths are laughing
At little children drowning
They won’t relent to your mild dissent
With the one per cent still counting
Oh oh oh oh
What have you become?
Back they slip down they go back they slip
Down they go back they slip down they go
Back they slip down they go back they slip
Clinging to the bow of a sinking ship
Rescue is unlawful
To the truly bloody awful
Englands worst are England’s first
For which they’re truly grateful
Psychopaths are laughing
At little children drowning
We’ve all been bent by the three per cent
With the one per cent still counting
Oh oh oh oh
What have you done?