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[ Remembering the FoE Rides against Uranium ]

Singing the anti-nuclear message

Music and singing were an important part of the Rides Against Uranium. Some songs were practiced and remembered on the ride. In the evenings there would usually be one or two people with a guitar and protest songs would be sung, including anti-nuclear protest songs. And everyone could at least clap out a beat.

In the towns where we stayed we would often find a pub and have an impromptu performance of folk songs, often to the delight of locals. A particularly memorable night for me was had in 1981 in Taralga. We got the pub really rocking.

These two songs came out of the Anti-uranium Songbook for Australia, 2nd printing, nov 1980. They were both sung by the 1981 Ride against Uranium.

We Ride Against Uranium
Words: Unknown Music: Trad Aust. Lachlan Tigers
This song is dedicated to the many anti-uranium bikerides that have happened in the last few years.

Chorus:
We ride against uranium, but you pretend your blind
Blow your own planet up, Don't fool around with mine
You dig and chop and build and burn the earth into the ground
So what do we tell the kids, "you've come to late we've closed it down"

1.
You leaders of the nation, who do you lead today?
Anyone with any sense is going the other way
You'll see your error some day, just don't be so slow
We're doing so much wrong, right now, we don't have long to go

2.
I've sat and listened to your rules since but a little tot
If it's underground you want to dig, if it moves you want it shot
Well that's no good any longer, and you really ought to know
So get your ear down to the ground, stop putting on a show

3.
We're all in this together, we're pigs in the same pen
Mother nature's a grand old lady, ruled by dirty old men
She raised up her family, we've all drunk from her cup
It takes a couple of centuries to screw the whole thing up.

---

Come all Australians Near and Far
Words: Dave Clark 1975 Tune: Trad Aust.

Come all Australians near and far and listen to my song
It's about the Australian Government and where they have gone wrong
Oh they're mining our uranium and sending it overseas
And the terrible stuff that comes from it I'm sure you wouldn't believe

Dear Mr Anthony, remember if you can,
A small amount of uranium gave those 'A' bombs in Japan
And now we have plutonium, oh science ain't you great
Uncle Sam pays the wages, and we just suffocate

You may think it's funny, you may think it's not
This stuff's so radioactive, it'll cook you on the spot
And whether it's used for the war machine or the making of nuclear power
The chance of a human catastrophe increases hour by hour

So dear Mr Politician who ever you may be
Don't export uranium, your barking up the wrong tree
And the people of Australia, and all countries around
Should fight like a mallee bull to "keep it in the ground"

---

A couple of short songs from the 1977 ride that I remember:

Deformed genes
based on a Skyhooks song and lyrics

Everybody's got deformed genes
And we all know what that means
Radiation in our bloodstreams
Everbody's got deformed genes

We're not as pretty as Skyhooks
But we sure get some weird looks
While the Yanks stuff their bank books
We all look like plucked chooks

Lucas Heights
Music: trad. Silent Night

Lucas Heights, Lucas Heights
Sir Phillip Baxter and the Atomic Commission
Are fooling 'round with nuclear fission
They'll blow us to kingdom come
So stick it up uranium

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