Tomorrow is May Day, traditionally this was the second most popular day after Christmas with the English population if you look at the many customs that took place on the day (many still do) having evolved since the Middle Ages. In his book ‘The English Year’, Steve Roud notes many customs held on this day including mock dancing bears, Jack-in-the-Green, May Dew, May Dolls, May Goslings, May Queens, Maypoles, Milkmaid Garlands, Minehead Hobby Horse, Padstow Hobby Horse…
May Day is also International Workers’ Day…originally adopted to unite workers across the world in support of the struggle for the eight-hour day, world peace, and socialism. International Workers’ Day carries on today and is celebrated by many (Ewan McLennan performed ‘Banks of Marble’ for Folk Radio to commemorate the day here).
May Day is also the day that Lunatraktors have chosen to release Rigs of the Times…
We recently reviewed ‘The Missing Star‘, the forthcoming new album from Lunatraktors which is set for release on the Summer solstice 21 June 2021. ‘Rigs of the Times’ is the first album single and can be preordered via Bandcamp.
Luntraktors on Rigs Of The Times
“Rigs Of The Times (Roud 876) is a traditional English folk song about profiteering, corruption and greed, dating from the early 1800s. There are some amazing versions by Shirley Collins, Sandy Denny and more recently Bellowhead. The ‘rigs’ in the original are tricks used by a butcher, a baker, a publican and a miller to swindle their customers, blaming the Napoleonic Wars. In 1999, Maddy Prior sang of the rigs of our times: transnational corporations, political bungs and privatised utilities. Twenty years on, Brexit and COVID have given the perfect cover for accelerated profiteering – asset stripping the nation, dodgy contracts for Tory donors, criminalising protest. Honesty’s all out of fashion, and the game is still rigged.
“We’re releasing Rigs on May Day, aka International Workers’ Day. Traditionally, a spring festival of renewal, where people take to the streets and stand up to the fat cats. The May Day festival is in decline in Britain. The land is under a spell, fixated on the spectre of colonial glory. Our Maypole is surrounded by seven scarecrows. The victorious Brexiteers, puffed with pseudo- sovereignty: Lord Gentry, Karen Fury, Master of the Hunt, Lady Chelsea, Para Dave, Mister Gammon, and Captain Football. A heptagram of paranoid patriotic fantasies, sexualised rage and shame, misogyny and xenophobia. And us in the middle of it all, singing our hearts out in a folk song, because what else is there to do? What else but cut to some of the kids we know, standing on the streets of Margate. Holding their empty signs of protest, freshness and clarity shining in their eyes.”
The video was filmed in Thanet in Winter 2020/21.
Rigs of the Time is released 1st May 2021. Download it via Bandcamp: https://lunatraktors.bandcamp.com/track/rigs-of-the-times-2
The Missing Star is out on 21 June 2021
Also, find out more and join their Moonclub Luna Community on Bandcamp: https://lunatraktors.bandcamp.com/moonclub