An inferior homage and update on Woody Guthrie's "Deportees - Plane Wreck at Los Gatos".  Indeed, I slipped up in the recording and inadvertantly said "Deportees" in one of the choruses.

 

The cops count them in on the beaches of Dover

Those who have risked life and limb on our seas;

They flee from their homelands, from death and from torture

To seek better lives as escaped refugees.

Goodbye to Muhammed

Goodbye to Khadija;

Wadae Abd al Malik

Omar w Farida

You won’t have your names when you ride the inflatables

All we will call you is just “Refugees”.

 

Omar’s a doctor and Omar’s illegal

He’s fleeing from fear and he’s running from Hell;

He flees from the grasp of those there who would harm him

Into the welcome of Priti Patel.

Goodbye to Muhammed

 

Farida’s a schoolgirl who rides with her family

The study she sought has been illegalised;

Her parents had sold all they owned for her passage

She clung to her dad as the dinghy capsized.

Goodbye to Muhammed

 

Forty two souls who are no longer with us

Forty two souls who were not caught that day;

Their names unrecorded, known only to Allah

These were a few we did not turn away.

Goodbye to Muhammed

 

She says we must put an end to this trafficking

To gangsters and conmen who fill up these boats

She says we must put an end to these drownings

But, whisper it softly, she’s harvesting votes.

Goodbye to Muhammed