I believe in vengeance, or do I?

[Red]

Personally I do believe in vengeance and when the time comes to deal with it I will.

The reason I'm saying this because of something that happened to me at a scooter rally in July 2012

I manage a Lambretta scooter racing team in my spare time and we've been going 3 years.

When we started we had a young lad racing for us and in the first year he did okay but went downhill rapidly in the second year,he was given plenty of warnings and chances but young lads being young lads he though he knew better,so i got the team together and told him that he one more chance to get his act together and sort himself out as he was becoming a danger to himself and other riders on the track.
His last opportunity came and nothing changed so i told him that it was over and that was it.

fast forward a month or so and I'm at a national scooter rally in Lincoln and wake up on the Sunday morning to find my Lambretta vandalised, every panel sctratched and gouged.

Over 4000 people there and a couple of thousand scooters and mine was the only one touched.

He was there along with his club and family,I have no proof....yet but it looks as though his father and friend are the main culprit,there's a lot of circumstantial evidence but nothing concrete.

I had to get the scooter reprayed so got this on it



This is what happened to it!!!!

















It may seem trivial to you but I've been into the scooter scene since 1984 and this thing shouldn't happen for whatever reason.

Friends on the scene and also people I've never met were so disgusted with this they set up a donations page to help me get the scooter resprayed etc and I received over £3500 in 2 weeks, which restored my faith in the human race.

So do I believe in vengeance?

yes I do

[Shush]

Personally I would have to say I have never been comfortable with the lyrics of Vengeance ever since I first head it in the 1980s. Do not have a problem with vengeance or the seeking of justice, but I think the Holocaust is not suitable material for what is basically a pop song. A very good song, important musically to many people, but still just a song.

Maybe I am completely wrong on this, and perhaps music should be used as a platform for people to express their feelings on such issues, having few other outlets for such thoughts.

I would be curious to know how the song would, or has been received in Israel. Would it be taken as offensive or distrust , or would it become a clarion call for justice, a tribute to the work of Mossad and the work of Simon Wiesenthal ?

Either way, me personally I never felt comfortable with the lyrics of the first paragraph. Its just too important for song lyrics.

On the other hand, the second paragraph on drug dealers, wonderfully followed up in the Hunt, I like very much. The idea of the man on the street dealing with what the Police do not, in their own community does sit well with me. 

[Stoney]

I can't agree with "the subject being too important for song lyrics", I can't at all..........
The Free Nelson Mandela song, trite as is may be, still helped in some small way scream for attention against apartheid. Pride by U2? God help us all, even BAND AID......... (sorry, but though I hate the song, it's benefits are undeniable)......
I don't think any subject should be considered "too important", protest songs are EXACTLY the point of punk, hardcore lyrics, the beat poets of the sixties had the same agenda, spirituals from the Mississippi  Delta helped keep people sane while working unforgiving hours in horrendous conditions. From there you get the blues, then eventually here we are.........
Vengeance is as valid now as ever, to me anyways......  Be a nazi, a rapist, a drug dealer preying on weak minded impressionable youths, whatever........ If the law isn't helping what then??? The song isn't validating the statement either, it's not saying YOU MUST FOLLOW ME AND TAKE UP ARMS, it's saying "WELL ME, I believe in Vengeance" ...... If it said "WE BELIEVE..." and in 84 Mr S carted have the Queens Hall punters off into Buttershaw to kick doors in, then maybe the point would be more valid. Not the case tho....

[Shush]

All valid points Stoney, and I can't disagree with what you have said. Completely agree the power and influence songs can have such as the Mandela song and Band Aid can not be over stated. I was reflecting on how that song made ME feel. I was not offended by the song at all at that time, just uncomfortable. Having a Polish back ground, I used to talk to many old lads who experienced the horrors first hand. It just did not feel right to me listening to references to it in a song.
Again, must entherise, uncomfortable, not offended. If you have or do chose to write songs on the subject, then that is your place to express your feelings, and that is all for the good.
As such, and again purely for me personally I kind of resent the song Vengeance , as at first, it put me off NMA. It was due to the insistence of a good friend of mine that I looked further into the band because he knew I would like them based on what else I was listening to at the time. --- and he was dead right .

[JohnnyM]

God help us all, even BAND AID......... (sorry, but though I hate the song, it's benefits are undeniable)......

It definitely helped the 80s record industry - though its actual benefits for Africa are less clear..

Anyway.. back on topic.. there's been quite a few posts from people who (understandably) felt the need for revenge - any experiences of actual revenge (and not just trashing an ex's record collection) - did violent retribution feel good and justified - or just empty & pointless?

[Shush]

Ironontour, what happened to your bike is really disgusting.

Its just too bad. Hours of someone's skilled dedication to do, then seconds for some numpty to ruin.

In my mind, part of the punishment for the **** that did it, make him go on a coarse learning how to do such artwork for a while. When he has finally leant something and do the best piece of work he can, make him drag a Stanley knife across it.

Like what you said about your fellow enthusiasts clubbing together to get it sorted out. Always seems to be the case that bad things can bring out the best in good people.

[sozbot]

I posted something a while back about how I was put in hospital a couple of years ago in a random street attack from someone I'd never met... I was repeatedly punched in the face, kneed in the balls, had the base of my spine repeatedly kicked, whilst all the time the bastard was screaming 'I'M GOING TO KILL YOU, YOU ****' for, again, no reason whatsoever, I'd never seen him before... I was wearing a light-coloured jumper and had to throw it away because it had so much blood on it...

...

I believe in justice.  I believe in vengeance. I believe in getting the bastard.

I'm so sorry you had to go through that, Master Ray.

That's just... awful. I can't believe he got away with it. Makes me feel sick.

[sozbot]

Personally I do believe in vengeance and when the time comes to deal with it I will.

The reason I'm saying this because of something that happened to me at a scooter rally in July 2012

...
It may seem trivial to you but I've been into the scooter scene since 1984 and this thing shouldn't happen for whatever reason.

Friends on the scene and also people I've never met were so disgusted with this they set up a donations page to help me get the scooter resprayed etc and I received over £3500 in 2 weeks, which restored my faith in the human race.

So do I believe in vengeance?

yes I do

Not trivial in the slightest. You have every right to be damn well p*ssed off. Sorry that it happened at all, and I hope they get the b*stards!!!

[JS]

It's interesting to see this topic still being raised 31 years after the song was written and I'm happy to see it discussed here. For my own part, there have been many moments in my life when I have wondered about it. It doesn't sit easily with how I see myself or how I see life in general. Mostly I believe in forgiveness. However it was written for genuine reasons (after seeing a documentary about Klaus Barbie) in a moment of pure anger. It's a primal reaction, not a philosophy, though I do believe that some kind of justice has to be seen to be done for society to function. 'The Hunt' and, perhaps even more, 'My People Right or Wrong', also express gut reactions that I don't necessarily agree with in my clearer moments but that doesn't make them invalid - often I write from other people's points of view anyway. I've never seen song-writing as expressions of 'philosophy'. Songs should be about emotions and emotions are contradictory. We all like both love and hate songs. 'Vengeance' has been a millstone around the necks of the band from the very beginning; it meant that we couldn't be trusted by the mainstream because they didn't quite know what we were going to say or do next - and still don't. But in that one sense it made us free. We never acknowledged its 'popularity' or let it become a signature song and we stopped playing it live for many years but sometimes it's played because of a special moment or just because it is a four minute blast entirely true to itself.

[Impuri-D]

Sometimes its just good to vent. Its important that when fucked up shit happens in the world, it makes us at least angry enough to vent, and I think 'outrage' is the right word for what the vibe and sentiment of the song evokes.

How many times have any/all of us read about someone like Joseph Fritzle, or Ian Huntley, and had the conversation with friends 'If I could just have 5 minutes alone with him....'. In reality, if presented with a guy hogtied in a room, a baseball bat, and impunity to act without consequence, most people's hardwired moral compass would make it very difficult to administer extreme harm to another human being, no matter what they had done to 'deserve' it. Its just good to feel that outrage as it comforts us with the knowledge that we are different to those we would not wish to become.

I remember hearing about the murder of Eugene Terre'Blanche on the news and i instantly played 'Red Earth', not because I 'celebrate' his demise, but I understand why it happened, and there is something satisfying about nasty people reaping what they sew.

[Stoney]

When you played it at Strummercamp I don't I've ever seen you more motivated to play it! Truly risen from the ashes of adversity......... I, and alot of others have loved your millstone, and will for a long time to come. One of many highlights in the canon for my money anyways......... Contradictory or not. 

[Impuri-D]

I, and alot of others have loved your millstone, and will for a long time to come. One of many highlights in the canon for my money anyways.........

Fuckin A 

 

Contradictory or not. 

It seems so simple but they just dont get it,
he meant what he said at the time that he said it 

[Master Ray]

Sometimes its just good to vent.
It IS good to vent.  I like to think of myself as a decent and good person, but when I think of what that utter c-word did to me, the blood starts to boil.  Sorry if my bad language offended anyone.
Some stories here about how bad acts were met with nothing even approaching punishment.  This happens a lot.  I'm the son of a (retired) copper and he dispairs of how little the public are protected nowadays (BTW, I hope nobody here subscribes to the whole ACAB ideal... that's just ridiculous...)

I genuinely hate the way that society nowadays excuses ANY kind of behavior .  I live in a town where so many idiotic, swaggering, simean-looking f***wits DEMAND that silly vague thing from me called 'respect' whilst offering nothing simliar in return. I've had kids who looked about 12 years old call me a c**t and then thow a mayo-smeared kebab in my face because I was smoking a fag outside my local pizza place and I didn't go to the off-licence over the road to buy them some booze... and then they threatened to stab me.

I am so bloody sick of of UK society nowadays...

And, as I mentioned before, if you want Vengeance, you should go out and get it because, God knows, no-one else will give a shit... 

 

[Johnz]

Thanks again for the replies, especially to JS for sharing his thoughts. I appreciate that this is not the first time this topic has been raised.

I'm also sorry to hear some of the experiences described here and the bitterness that they caused. While there are plenty of things that make me mad or question my faith in humanity, my belief in forgiveness has never really been tested, at least not to my mind.

The song most certainly is 'a four minute blast entirely true to itself' and I can like it for that.

[Toronto Popular Front]

after reading JS reply, and to bring in another thread - could it be because of this song why they have not been asked to do 'Later' ?