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I'll Choose My Martyrs For Myself (Tyler Shipley)

from The Middle Ages, Vol III by Tyler Shipley

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This is the only song on Volume III that isn't a cover; Martyrs didn't really fit on the main album, but there was no way I could leave it out entirely. I practically copped the lyrics from lecture notes about the way we understand history. That is, it doesn't have to be received passively, just because someone tells it to us a certain way. I don't have to stand and clap because the PA announcer at the Blue Jays game says this soldier on the field is a hero. I'm allowed to pick other heroes, other flags, and I do. In this song, I specifically point to the Mackenzie Papineau Brigades, groups of poor (sometimes homeless) Canadian men who travelled - against the wishes of the Canadian government - to Spain to try to protect the Spanish Republic from the fascists. Here in 2017 fascists are again trying to gain the upper hand and I know which side I'm on.

lyrics

I'll choose my martyrs for myself. Not guys who died to save the health of a parasitic "empire lite," killing the dark to make space for the white. I'll choose my martyrs for myself. Won't wear a poppy on my shirt for men who use their guns to hurt a farmer trying to grow some food that wasn't IMF approved. I'll choose my martyrs for myself. Don't tell me I'm supposed to cry for a jacked-up privileged white guy shooting rounds into a crowd. (Coincidentally everyone was brown.) I'll choose my martyrs for myself. Just cos you televise the wake (some cop, his body's held in state) that don't make him my hero. The cops kill people that I know. I'll choose my martyrs for myself. I will commemorate the lives of normal people went to die to stop the fascists and the snakes who haunt our nights and break our days. I'll choose my martyrs for myself. The Mackenzie-Papineau Brigade packed up their shit and went to Spain. Old Churchill didn't give a fuck; Spanish Republic out of luck. I'll choose my martyrs for myself. One day they'll knock upon my door; "don't want your trouble anymore." If I forgot what side I'm on, won't have forgotten very long. I'll choose my martyrs for myself.

credits

from The Middle Ages, Vol III, released September 3, 2017

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about

Tyler Shipley Toronto, Ontario

Tyler Shipley was the founding member of the Consumer Goods (theconsumergoods.bandcamp.com) and now performs as a solo artist.

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