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Digwell Carol

Leslie Fish
Language: English (American)


Leslie Fish

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[1989]
Lyrics and music / Testo e musica / Paroles et musique / Sanat ja sävel: Leslie Fish
Album / Albumi: Firestorm - Songs of the Third World War

Leslie Fish.
Leslie Fish.


The song is a small piece of science fiction masquerading as a traditional song about what initially sounds like a pagan festival. Imagining a kind of peasantry that's survived the nuclear holocaust, the song is a "carol" for a holiday in which all of the corpses and dead crops from radiation sickness are piled in a ceremonial mound to "keep the devil down."

By the end of the song, it is revealed that the "devil" is the word for the powerful people who've retreated to underground bunkers, and that by heaping the dead on top of the doors to the bunkers, they'll be kept in "hell."
It is the time of Digwell, now Summer's gone away
People come from miles around to meet on Digwell day
We all come here with mighty stones, with gravel, rocks, and sand
Bring it here with oxcarts or with buckets in your hand

Pile high, pile high, the devil's underground
Pile high, pile high, keep the devil down

And bring you all your blighted crops and blighted beasts beside
And coffins of this season's dead that of the blight have died
Bring them to the mountain's top and fetch the boulders near
'Tis fitting that the blighted dead should all be buried here

Pile high, pile high, the devil's underground
Pile high, pile high, keep the devil down

So fetch the boulders, sand, and stones, and pile them deeply here
We bury now the sorrows, sins, and bad luck of the year
And when the mountain's higher by the mound we build today
Then we shall feast and dance and sing this autumn night away

Pile high, pile high, the devil's underground
Pile high, pile high, keep the devil down

For back in our forefathers' time, the devils ruled this land
They made cruel wars and laws to rule the folks on every hand
They spoiled the land and water, and they poisoned half the sky
They cared for nothing but their power, though man and nature die

Pile high, pile high, the devil's underground
Pile high, pile high, keep the devil down

In time the danger grew so fierce it threatened them as well
And so they dug deep in the Earth and hid them safe in Hell
They hoped to wait in comfort 'till the poisons wore away
For then they could come out again and rule another day

Pile high, pile high, the devil's underground
Pile high, pile high, keep the devil down

They hid themselves below the ground and left the people here
Amid the blight that they had made and even they must fear
But still the people stayed alive, and well they promised then
That all the devils hid in Hell would never rule again

Pile high, pile high, the devil's underground
Pile high, pile high, keep the devil down

And so our fathers hunted 'til they found the secret gate
And there they piled the boulders high above where devils wait
And thus we've ever after done these many years and more
So now our manmade mountain stands above their exit door

Pile high, pile high, the devil's underground, oh
Pile high, pile high, keep the devil down

Contributed by Michael Bacon - 2024/5/14 - 04:41




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