If They Come in the Morning (aka No Time for Love)

Lyrics to the song I wrote in 1976 have been largely unchanged, until now. Christy Moore added names, and it's appeared in other languages. This new version brings it up to date with issues like digital snooping, mass surveillance and crossing borders. The virtual performance from my kitchen comes via Trad Arts Team's hosted sessions called "Sing Political" Also recorded on the album "Misfits Migrants and Murders"

If They Come In The Morning © Jack Warshaw 1976 and 2017
Chords - D tuning + 2 (Vamp in D to G) (continue vamping through first line)
They call it the law - apartheid, internment, repression, injustice and silence
D G D G A7
The law that they made to keep you and me where they think we belong
D G D G D
They who hide behind steel and bullet-proof glass, machine guns and spies
F#m G A7
And tell us who suffer their tear gas and torture that we're in the wrong
G D
Chorus
No time for love if they come in the morning
A7 D
No time to show fear or for tears in the morning
G D
No time for goodbyes no time to ask why
F#m G A7 D
And the wail of the siren is the cry of the morning
The trade union leaders, the rebels, the writers, the fighters and all
The strikers who fought with the cops at their factory gates
The sons and the daughters of unnumbered heroes who paid with their lives
The poor folk whose color or class or belief was their only mistake Cho.

They suffered the torture they rotted in cells, wrote letters, went crazy and died
The limits of pain they endured but the lonliness got them instead
The courts gave ‘em justice as justice is given by well mannered thugs
Sometimes they fought for the will to survive and sometimes they wished they were dead Cho.

They took away Sacco, Vanzetti, Connolly and Pearse in their time
They came for Mandela, Bobby Sands, the Panthers and many more friends
Now they come after those who expose their crimes like Snowdon has done
In places that never made headlines, the list never ends Cho.

The boys in blue are only a few of the everyday cops on their beat
The CID, NSA, Google and Apple and spies and eyes in the skies do their job well
And behind them the brains that build systems that collect every word that we breathe
And the ones who decide when it’s time to drag you to a cell Cho.

Now you tell us that here we are free to say and to think what we please
To march and to speak, to write and to sing as long as we do it alone
But say it out loud with millions of comrades and it won’t be too long. Till they give you a long rest with walls and barbed wire for a home Cho.

You call us illegal, unwanted, mass rapists, drug dealers and more
We who pick all your crops; clean your homes, wash your kids, fight and die in your wars
You order your police and border enforcers to shove us back where we once fled in fear
Away from the land you call “free” that you took from the poor folk you murdered before Cho.

So come all you people to give to your brothers and sisters the will to fight on
They say you get used to a war but that doesn't mean the war isn't on
The fish needs the sea to survive just as your comrades do
And the death squads can only get to them if first they can get through to you Cho.

Видео If They Come in the Morning (aka No Time for Love) канала Jack Warshaw