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May Day 1894

from Chants for Socialists by Darren Hayman

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.
    Purchasable with gift card

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    the CD version of the latest Darren Hayman album:

    with lyric and essay booklet

    Includes unlimited streaming of Chants for Socialists via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 14 days
    edition of 1000 
    Purchasable with gift card

      £10 GBP or more 

     

  • Darren Hayman - single coloured vinyl
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    limited to 400 copies vinyl version of the new Darren Hayman album:

    includes red vinyl Chants for Socialists, with lyric and essay booklet, in sleeve hand printed on William Morris's own Albion Press

    Includes unlimited streaming of Chants for Socialists via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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  • deluxe handmade case in William Morris fabric (with Dubs for Socialists download)
    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    package includes:
    Chants For Socialists CD (with booklet)
    download code for Dubs for Socialists
    beautiful handmade CD case in a choice of William Morris fabrics

    Includes unlimited streaming of Chants for Socialists via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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about

“May Day” is the first single to be taken from Darren Hayman’s powerful new collection of songs based based on William Morris's Chants for Socialists (due for release on wiaiwya on 2 February). Darren explains:

“Of all of Morris’s lyrics that I arranged May Day is the least concerned with the shackles or work or the socialist struggle.

May Day become know as International Workers Day shortly before the writing of these words so it’s tempting to assume that Morris was thinking more about the day as the ancient spring festival, a holiday to beckon in the first days of spring.

In much the same way I’ve treated the song as a workers’ holiday rather than a workers’ celebration. On my album of Morris lyrics I have dressed many of his words with a feint sorrow and ennui.

May Day however is the album’s true moment of optimism and it’s only pop song. I wanted to make the guitars chime and the singers’ soar.

For about three minutes I wanted it to seem like everything might be alright.”

The album Chants for Socialists was recorded at three of Morris’s homes; The William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow (with a choir of left-leaning locals), Kelmscott House in Hammersmith (where they used the Albion press used by Morris to handprint the record sleeves) and Kelmscott Manor in Gloucestershire, (where Hayman played Morris's own piano).

The result is a beautifully crafted album, lovingly produced with a team of enthusiastic helpers who lent their expertise and time, which will be made available to anyone who wants to listen, allowing people to pay what they can afford or what they think it’s worth. Chants for Socialists is an album of 19th century chants made relevant to the 21st century while staying true to many of William Morris’s ideals.

credits

from Chants for Socialists, released February 2, 2015

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