Lyrics

“The Zong Massacre”

Imagine the very worst.
Slave ships got there first.

With a soul deep thirst,
You fear the worst.
You fear the worst.
This voyage is cursed.

Shackled down in the lower deck
Without any food or drink.
Our broken hopes have begun to sink.
Something has gone terribly wrong
On the slave ship Zong.
The White gods are displeased
And need a sacrifice.

First you unchain the children,
And cast them overboard.
Requiem sharks will greet them in your mile-long wake.
And Then you cull the women,
The starving & diseased.
Swing open the deadlight,
Out through porthole,
And into the blue abyss.

How do you account for this?
Indemnified for each who died,
Out on the open sea.
To this dehumanized commodity,
This vessel’s ill-starred cargo,
You and your wretched crew,
Have still yet more to do.
All hands!

One hundred miles to shore,
Jettisoned 4 dozen more.
One hundred Forty-Two stories untold,
Buried in the ocean floor.
Restless spirits adrift along the middle passage.
Where the chains remain.
Their names reduced to hashmarks in a log book.
Now they dance for rain.

Bound in chains they dance for rain.
You can hear their chains when they dance for rain.
Bound in chains we dance for rain.
Let it rain,
Let it rain,
Let it rain down.
Gonna rain on down.