Thursday, March 01, 2007

Just Another Thursday in Black

Well the jury retired with a word from the judge
Not to go and do anything rash
And the lawyers withdrew, replenished anew
With undisclosed payments of cash
It was on a Wednesday that the jury retired
And on Thursday came dutifly back
There was nothing so special they had to report
It was just one more Thursday in black

There was no expense spared to make sure it was fair
There was even a guest star Allblack
But at closing the law showed who it works for
It was one more Thursday in black

Well if you¹re a pig and sufficiently big
And there¹s several of you in a pack
You can do pretty much what you like to a woman
And know that she can¹t hit you back
Right now somewhere unknown ,there¹s a woman alone
In pain and in fear on the rack
while grinning police ready bottle and grease
for one more Thursday in black

There was no expense spared to make sure it was fair
There was even a guest star Allblack
But at closing the law showed who it works for
It was just one more Thursday in black

by Don Franks

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:51 pm

    Don Franks’ song is more anti-police than anti-rape. He’s hardly a poster boy for women's right to justice.

    Check out his vicious, COWARDLY attack on Sonja Davies just after her death in 2005.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=5528219E-39E4-11DA-8E1B-A5B353C55561

    Note the use of old-fashioned, sexist language ("a mere pin-up girl", “lady”, “skirt”), the smug, patronising attitude typical of young male leftists and old male unionists alike in the seventies. Sonja battled on through that hostile environment to put working women’s rights onto the union agenda for the first time, because male unionists like him were ignoring them. Yet he castigates her for not achieving anything. What has Don Franks ever done for workers - male or female - except sing songs? It is a really nasty, unbalanced hatchet job and I'm surprised the Herald published it.

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  2. Anonymous7:36 pm

    The offensive putdown sexist phrase" a mere pinup girl" was the Herald's headline, not mine. I protested to them about it but did not get a retraction.

    I stand right behind the article I originally wrote.
    Why this anonymous person calls it "cowardly" I do not understand.
    Is it because she was dead?
    I wrote and had published an even more critical piece about Ken Douglas not long ago, and the last time I looked he appeared to be alive.
    Rather to my surprise, a rather large number of people came quietly up to me after the Davies thing was printed and said it expressed what they would have liked to have openly said.
    There was just one person, a partnership advocating former SUPunion official, who angrily approached and berated me saying my piece was lies.

    Was that perhaps you, comrade anonymous?

    ReplyDelete