Ready, Aim, Sing! Bowalley Road's proprietor, with more hair and less weight, singing up a storm at a 1981 anti-tour rally in Dunedin.
IN MY LAST CONTRIBUTION to The Daily Blog I described an incident involving myself and two
friends drinking coffee in the University of Otago’s student union caf’ way
back in 1983.
“Naturally we were talking politics and, as the conversation
progressed, it turned out that all of us were working on the campaign
committees of Labour candidates. That wasn’t so odd in my case, I’ve never been
anything other than a democratic socialist. But one of my comrades used to be
an anarchist and the other a Trotskyist. It inspired me to pen a little
good-natured satire (set to the tune of Cliff Richards “Summer Holiday”).”
I even supplied the chorus.
We’re all working for a Labour victory,
No more Trotsky, no more Lenin or Mao.
We’re all working for a Labour victory
I’m glad the comrades cannot see us now!
It occurred to me
that there might be some interest out there in the whole song. Such ephemera
often serves to enliven the larger historical picture.
Before proceeding,
however, I’ll share with you an interesting story connected to this little
ditty.
The 1983
Otago/Southland regional conference of the Labour Party was held in
Invercargill. On the Saturday evening of the conference weekend, seated in a
bar (the name of which I cannot now recall) I sang my song to the clutch of
left-wing comrades I was getting drunk with. They all seemed to enjoy it,
singing along lustily at every chorus. What I did not realise, however, was
that the Editor of the National Business Review, Colin James, was also
in the bar – listening in.
The following
Monday, I was back at work at the University Book Shop in Dunedin when who
should drop by but the same Colin James. He was there to collect his promised
copy of the lyrics – which he proposed to use in his reporting of the
conference. (Yes, Labour was such a powerful political force in the early 1980s
that even its regional conferences merited serious media attention!) Tucking
his copy of the song into his coat pocket, he then informed me that his current
‘By the Left’ columnist, Alf Kirk, having just secured a position with the
State Services Commission, would no longer be able to write for the NBR.
Would I be interested in the job?
Thus did my career
as a political columnist begin! Never let anyone tell you that writing and
singing satirical songs is a waste of time and energy!
Just a few
contextual notes before we get going. The “David” mentioned in the song is, of
course, David Lange. Elected leader of the Labour Party in 1982, he’d lost
little time in warning members against public shows of disunity and dissent.
This was intended as a shot across the bow of the Party President, Jim Anderton
– who was already sounding warnings about the Caucus’s rightward drift.
Undaunted by Lange’s rebuke, Anderton urged Party members to be “ambitious” for
Labour’s cause. This, I hope, will make the third verse a little clearer.
Anyway, here’s the
song in its entirety. Enjoy!
“We’re All Working For A
Labour Victory”
(Sung to the tune of Cliff Richard’s “Summer
Holiday”)
We’re all working
for a Labour victory,
No more Trotsky,
no more Lenin or Mao.
We’re all working
for a Labour victory
I’m glad the
comrades cannot see us now!
Oh, we all used to
carry placards,
We all used to
hurl abuse.
But now the
Marxist vanguard
Just murmurs,
‘What’s the use?’
CHORUS
We all used to
think that the workers
Would follow our
clarion call.
But we’ve given up
the Revolution
To go canvassing
door-to-door.
CHORUS
We are told that
ambition is a good thing,
But we’re warned
that dissension is a sin.
So we’ve learned
to turn the rhetoric down
When David’s
listening in.
CHORUS
But it hasn’t all
been plain-sailing,
The conservatives
shook their heads,
When we forced
through a remit requiring
Retirement homes
for Reds.
CHORUS
As Mike Hosking
would say: “Happy days.”
This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Saturday, 19 September
2015.
