Shipbuilding

"Is it worth it?
A new winter coat and shoes for the wife
And a bicycle on the boy's birthday
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
By the women and children
Soon we'll be shipbuilding

Well I ask you
The boy said, "Dad they're going to take me to task
But I'll be back by Christmas"
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
Somebody said that someone got filled in
For saying that people get killed in
The result of this shipbuilding"

- Elvis Costello

@Geri love it. So evocative. Both versions but probably the Robert Wyatt more ❤️

@janestegerlewis I think so too xx

Seems a relevant song atm

@Geri I saw him perform this at the Cambridge Folk Festival, just him and an acoustic guitar. The audience came in on every ‘spread around town’ so softly it was like a whisper. Stunning performance and still gives me goose pimples thinking about it.

@Geri
A shocking experience some years ago:

At a public meeting with parliamentary candidates, a question was asked about closing the town's arms factory, which made landmines and torture equipment. The Labour candidate was against it. "It's people's jobs!"

I wondered how hungry and cold my children would have to be before I would take such a job. No. Couldn't. I'd find another way.

Strange none of them considered re-tooling the factory. No demand for ploughshares? (Biblical ref)

@sunflowerinrain.

​"Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears."