Battle of the Beanfield

There's this band called The Levellers.  They're British, based in Brighton and do political folky -rocky punky sort of songs.  They were moderately successful in the early 90s.  They have a fiddle and a didgeridoo player in their band.  Well, they are touring again, and going to play their album Levelling the Land in it's entirety, with extra bits thrown in at the end.  I've got myself a ticket.

I reckon One Way was their most famous song from that album but the one that affected me the most was Battle of the Beanfield.  It was about real life police brutality towards a group of travellers who wanted to set up near Stonehenge for a festival.  You can read about it on wikipedia here.

The Levellers did a song about it, called Battle of the Beanfield.  I think I first read about these events when I was 14, maybe 15.  I don't recall if it was before or after I'd heard the Levellers song.   I must have read about it in The Guardian newspaper, our family newspaper, and it was probably in the G2 section (the editorial supplement).  I do remember that the article made me very very angry.  I stayed angry about it for months, and I remember the tightly wound black rage that didn't leave me, and I know it was triggered by this article about the battle.

I could not believe the injustice of it and I could not believe the police acted in such a way.  It wasn't my political epiphany - after all, I have a lefty Welsh father and a feminist Irish mother, but it did help explain to me the power relations in our society and the bigotry and hatred that some groups have toward others.  It solidified my thoughts and ideas about the privledged (although I did not use that phrase then) and made me think more about what is rigth and what is wrong.

Here are the lyrics from the Levellers' song.  It's all true.

I thought I heard something calling me
I've seen the pictures on TV
And I made up my mind that I'd go and see
With my own eyes

It didn't take too long to hitch a ride
With a guy going south to start a new life
Past the place where my friend died
Two years ago

Down the 303 at the end of the road
Flashing lights - exclusion zones
And it made me think it's not just the stones
That they're guarding

Hey, hey, now can't you see
There's nothing here that you can call free
They're getting their kicks
They're laughing at you and me

As the sun rose on the beanfield
They came like wolf on the fold
And no, they didn't give a warning
They took their bloody toll

I seen a pregnant woman
Lying in blood of her own
I seen her children crying
As the police tore apart their home

And no they didn't need a reason
It's what your votes condone
It seems they were committing treason
By trying to live on the road

And I say,
Hey, hey, now can't you see
There's nothing here that you can call free
They're getting their kicks
They're laughing at you and me

Hey, hey, now can't you see
There's nothing here that you can call free
They're getting their kicks
They're laughing at you and me

Bastards

Remember what you heard,

Hey, hey, now can't you see
There's nothing here that you can call free
They're getting their kicks
They're laughing at you and me


You can view the video to it here, which also includes footage from a documentary about the battle.

Anyone else know this band?  I reckon a couple of you might do.  Anyone else going to the tour?