na-mara Songs From The Spanish Civil War
8 videos • 380 views • by DoubleSqueeze Album Notes The Bite This is a new recording of the title track from our 2011 album The Bite. The song is loosely based on the experiences of George Wheeler who, when interviewed by the Guardian newspaper in 2000, told of his 'bite', a small piece of wood he would place in his mouth as he went onto the battlefield and which he could clench as a meagre defence against shell shock. This song is a homage to George Wheeler and all those who volunteered to fight against Fascism in Spain in the 1930s. Only For Three Months As with The Bite, we have made a new recording of this song to commemorate the 75th anniversary, on the 23rd May 2012, of the 4,000 children evacuated from Bilbao and brought to the UK after the criminal carpet bombing of Guernica by Franco's Fascist forces. We hope the song goes some small way to remembering what must have been a truly heartbreaking parting. The English Penny This song is based on the story of Penny Feiwel, a nurse who volunteered to go to Spain to help in the hospitals of the Spanish Republic and the International Brigades. The song takes the form of an imagined conversation between Penny and a young nurse who is nursing her in her old age. It compares and contrasts the tranquillity of where she is now, with the chaos, noise and terror of war. It is based on Penny's own words as recorded in Max Arthur's 2009 book The Real Band of Brothers. The Silver Duro Only for Three Months tells of the parting of the Basque Children from Bilbao. The Silver Duro tells the story of the re-union of some of those children who were lucky enough to meet their parents again after the Second World War. We dedicate the song to Elisio Ochoa and Ascension Wakeman whose contrasting stories formed the basis for this song.