I've been meaning to dig into wikisource more closely for a while. Inspired to have a look by seeing this noted in the de.lirio.us: entries RSS feed. Ahhh... the Levellers. For some reason this resonates like DADGAD tuning for me, I guess thanks to the punkfolkistas of the same name, and of course to the sublime World Turned Upside Down (by Leon Rosselson) so powerfully rendered by the great Dick Gaughan.

It seems appropriate. Wikipedia, wikisource and similar efforts are modern examples of mass democratic movements, 'great levellers'. And they work! Amazed and delighted, me...

The Agreement Of The People. The Levellers' Manifesto, printed 30 April 1649

Oh - and it turns out I've been wrong all these years trying to play TWTUD in DADGAD :o) Dick comments on all the tracks in Handful of Earth at footstompin.com, including notes of tuning and capo. His remarks about peaceful revolutions and violent counter-revolution are worth reading as well!

So much has been written in recent years about this period of English history that there's not much I could add here.

The English Civil War, which was in fact simply a Bourgeois Revolution, left many of its early supporters feeling cheated and betrayed.The Diggers were Christian, pacifist and could be described as primitive communists.

The conclusion of the song, in my interpretation, is that, as they were not prepared to defend themselves, they were annihilated. The evidence of history is that revolutions are usually peaceful - but the resulting counter-revolution is usually extremely bloody and ruthless. Anyone who believes that any ruling class will give up power without extreme resistance is living in a different dimension.

The guitar tuning used here was DADDAE with a capo at the 2nd fret

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