- The Colours

Words: Paul Simmonds
Tune: Paul Simmonds

Much-overlooked 1980s punk-folk song about the Nore Mutiny of 1797. Performed by "The Men They Couldn't Hang" on their 1988 album "Waiting for Bonaparte"

I am a member of the council
Of the naval mutiny
I’m no traitor to my conscience
Having done my sworn duty

These are my last words
Before the scaffold
And I charge you all to hear
How a wretched British sailor
Became a citizen mutineer

Pressed into service to carry powder
I was loyal to the crack of the whip
If I starved on the streets of Bristol,
I starved worse on a British ship

Red is the colour of the new Republic
Blue is the colour of the sea
White is the colour of my innocence
Not surrender to your mercy

I was woken from my misery
By the words of Thomas Paine
On my barren soil they fell like
The sweetest drops of rain

Red is the colour of the new Republic…

So in the spring of the year we took the fleet
Every cask and cannon and compass sheet
And we flew a Jacobite flag to give us heart
While Pitt stood helpless we were waiting for Bonaparte

Red is the colour of the new Republic…

All you soldiers, all you sailors,
All you labourers of the land
All you beggars, all you builders,
All you come here to watch me hang

To the masters we are the rabble,
We are the ‘swinish multitude’
But we can re-arrange the colours
Of the red and the white and the blue

Red is the colour of the new Republic…