Charles Windsor Charles Windsor, who's at the door At such an hour, who's at the door In the back of an old green Cortina You're on your way to the guillotine Here the rabble comes The kind you hoped were dead They've come to chop, to chop off your head Hundreds of bound big business men Hacks from The Sun, military men So many rich men weep in despair On and on into Trafalgar Square Here the rabble comes The kind you hoped were dead They've come to chop, to chop, chop, chop your head These once peaceful streets The scenes of revenge you had not wished to see Revenge is so sweet for those who have never known anything sweet Here the rabble come The kind you hoped were dead They've come to chop, to chop off your head notes: Alternative version appears on 1996's That's All Very Well, But... Covered by the Manic Street Preachers in 1994 and included as a b-side to their single Life Becoming a Landslide. The song is an attack on the contemporary Charles, Prince of Wales. More broadly, it's also something of a reenactment of the French Revolution, in which French peasants delivered many aristocrats to their death at the guillotine. Malcolm: I was reading a lot about
the French Revolution at the time, and imagined Prince Charles being carted
off to the guillotine in Trafalgar Square. At about this time we did a
French compilation called A La The Cortina is or was an automobile manufactured by Ford and marketed in the UK and Australia. (A picture of an old green Cortina. And here's a red one.) Possibly a symbol of the British working class, the "rabble," substituted for the cart and horse used by the peasants in the French Revolution? The Sun prides itself on being "England's best-selling newspaper," though from the web site it strikes me as more like a tabloid. Trafalgar Square is in central London. Since 1848, it has been a favorite meeting place for demonstrators and marchers (from aboutbritain.com). found on: I Am a Wallet, That's All Very Well, But...
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