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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Comes as a cd/dvd set in double jewel case with matching picture discs. Artwork features Penelope's "activist patch" coat with patches collected from activist campaigns all over the world that Penelope has played for and/or supported in 15 years of touring

    Includes unlimited streaming of Legacy: Two Decades of Topical Writing via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Full Digital Discography

    11
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    Get all 11 Penelope Swales releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Captains of Industry, Legacy: Two Decades of Topical Writing, Skin: Deep, Archive Vol. 2: Songs from the Borderline 1989-1992, Monkey Comfort, 'Archive': Demos, Out-takes and One-offs 1995-2000, Justifying your Longings to the Doctor, Homemade Wine, and 3 more. , and , .

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about

rewritten and recorded 2010 for this collection with updated lyrics (original 1992 version appears on "Between Light and Dark")

lyrics

Legacy (2010 version)
© Penelope Swales 2010

I wake into the morning,
I find no joy in waking
Coz with waking comes remembrance
With remembrance, recognition
Recognition, comprehension
Comprehension, obligation
In the frailness of the morning
To find the strength to shift a nation, Ohh

And what will be my legacy?
One of the luckiest people in the world

Young and free, young and healthy,
Young and wealthy, young and white
Our poorest are still among the affluent
Running water, food and shelter
Can be yours without a fight
Living in the Lucky Country
By some strange twist of fate

The suffering of millions
Is too big to get a grip on
If defies all explanation
It’s beyond our comprehension
But I reflect on my mortality
Reflect on its finality
I have it on authority
That my own death is a certainty, And

What will have been my legacy?
One of the few with the time to change the world

Young and free, young and healthy,
Young and wealthy, young and white
Our poorest are still among the affluent
While our brothers and our sisters shiver huddled in their tents
Drinking water tainted with their excrement

So I went into the street
Yes we were voting with our feet
Surprised to see how quickly
It cost us all our respectability
Being rough-housed by policemen
Give you some indication
Just a little comprehension
Of life beneath oppression, and

People on their lunchbreak say
“What those wierdos bitching ‘bout today?”
And the ask me “Just what do you think you’re doing with your life?
You should straighten up and realise your potential
Young and free, young and healthy,
Young and wealthy, young and white
You should be thinking of your future, my girl!”
(somewhere someone else has to have less)

The machinery of nations
Offers up no explanations
About why globalisation
Must be oiled with exploitation
The Doha Round’s embarrassment
The failure of development
The continued blind aggrandisement
Of a wealth based on embezzlement, and

What will have been our legacy?
Riding bloated on the back of the pacific giant’s gluttony

While Nigerians, Kiribatians, Bangladeshis, Tuvaluvans
Watch their farmland sink beneath the rising oceans
Lose their country, lose their courage
Richer states deaf to their pleas
Don’t wanna hear about no climate refugees

Young and healthy, young and wealthy,
Young and free and young and white
Our poorest are still among the affluent
While interventions, mixed intention
The colonial reinvention
Takes on unexpected, yes and frightening dimension

While Palestinians Arab civilians
Tibetans, Uighers, Sudanese
Caught in the crossfire of competing ideologies
And greater numbers every year my friend
Lie huddled in their tents
Drinking water tainted with our excrement

credits

from Legacy: Two Decades of Topical Writing, released July 1, 2010
Vocal, guitar - Penelope Swales
Bass - Mal Webb
Drums - Carl Pannuzzo
Recorded at Chez Mal studio.

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Penelope Swales Boolarra, Australia

Penelope Swales has been articulating the human condition with passion and humour for 30+ years. She sings about politics, love, friendship, the unbreakable bond between us and dogs and the impact of the Internet on society. She won the 2019 Alistair Hulett Songs for Social Justice Award with “Cambridge Analytica”. “The Ides of March in Christchurch" was short-listed for the same award in 2020. ... more

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