Refugee by Oli Spleen ~ Tristram Arnold, Merlin & Polina Shepherd

Refugee charities are urging the British government to open safe routes or risk a new wave of fatalities in the Channel.

In November 2021, twenty-seven people, including a seven-year-old boy and a pregnant woman, drowned in the worst tragedy of its kind.

Please consider supporting one of these charities if you can:

https://www.therefugeebuddyproject.org
https://www.thousand4thousand.org.uk
https://refugeeradio.org.uk
https://rnli.org
https://hastings.cityofsanctuary.org

“The current refugee crisis is, in fact, a global humanitarian crisis. Despite the framing by the UK media, the numbers of people seeking refuge in the UK is actually down on previous years – in the year ending September 2021, the UK received fewer applications than it did in pre-pandemic 2019. What has changed is that the routes being taken by people seeking refuge has shifted toward small boats crossing the Channel, making them far more visible to the public.

The increase in Channel crossings is a direct result of insufficient safe routes for people to seek refuge. There is no way to claim asylum in the UK from outside the UK; you cannot simply walk into an Embassy or Consulate and claim asylum, you have to be in the UK. Were the UK Government to open effective safe routes, for example to open the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme promised in September 2020, then people would not make the dangerous journey across the busiest shipping lane in the World. To quote Warsan Shire “no one would put their children in a boat unless the sea is safer than the land”.”

- Alex Kempton, Operations and Campaigns Manager, The Refugee Buddy Project.

Tracklist

1.	Oli Spleen ~ Tristram Arnold, Merlin & Polina Shepherd - Refugee	6:26

Lyrics

Imagine you come from a place torn apart
Just looking for somewhere to make a new start
You’re doomed to your fate in these turbulent times
Your land and your loved ones are lost long behind

You wander the world with no home and no hope
And wonder each moment how you’ll ever cope
Your life is a desperate fight to exist
You struggle each day just to be

Imagine the life
Imagine the life of a refugee

Imagine your family crammed in a small boat
Adrift on salt water, your world set afloat
The fear that you feel as you sail from that shore
Away from a world that is ravaged by war
You cling to the raft like the threads of your past
And pray that you won’t drown at sea

Imagine the life
Imagine the life of a refugee

А я иду по неизведанной дороге. Куда же мне идти, куда же мне бежать? Откуда ж мне искать подмоги? Я иду по дороге. Горизонты темны и пусты. О Боже, о Боже, о Боже…

So you want your red rivers of blood
You want to see streams in the gutter
Seeds of hatred and death
That you sow with each breath
The bile that spews forth
With the lies that you utter

And can you imagine the suffering you cause
From your places of power, you mongers of war
How can this not haunt you when you go to sleep
How can you still live with the suffering you wreak

And can you imagine how hard it must be
Can you not sympathise, have you no empathy
Are you not a human with the humanity
To imagine the life of a refugee

Credits

released February 1, 2022
Lead vocals and lyrics - Oli Spleen
Additional vocals and lyrics in Russian - Polina Shepherd
Piano - Tristram Arnold
Clarinet - Merlin Shepherd
Accordion and additional backing vocals - Mishkin Fitzgerald
Bass and additional production - Garry Mitchell
Recorded and produced by Garry and Mishkin at The Nest Studios Brighton
Mastered by Robert Macciochi at Subvert Central Mastering

Cover art image “Refugees” by Cyprián Majerník.

License