Deportation

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Deportation from the album Is It Reggae?
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download the song on Bandcamp HERE and at all major download stores HERE
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Deportation lyrics
4,000 miles on the banana boat my dad he came
To work on London’s buses and trains
From his sunny home in the Caribbean
To cold grey wet lands of the European

All of his bosses they were white
He had no equal employment rights
He’d often work 14 hours a day
He never got promoted nor got praise

He did the jobs the whites wouldn’t do
The harder he worked the more their discrimination grew
They housed him in a dirty slum
Paid for by half of his income

Enoch Powell wanted a Ministry of Repatriation
Maggie Thatcher said ‘We live in an Alien Nation’
Racial discrimination from governmental organizations
What they wanted was deportation
Deportation, deportation

He never complained, he never cursed
His wife was an NHS nurse
She wasn’t white nor a Christian
She was a hard working black woman
But was selected too for deportation
Deportation, deportation, deportation, deportation
Was selected for deportation

They helped build London Transport and the N.H.S.
They were deported with the rest
No one helped them fight their deportation
Never received compensation
Deportation, deportation, deportation
They never received compensation
They never received compensation, no

After 30 years they kicked them out
They didn’t understand what it was all about
Government said ‘You got no right to appeal’
It wasn’t a bad dream it was real
Deportation, deportation, deportation, deportation

Now they sit on their porch in Spanish Town
Watching the Caribbean sun go down
Still believe when told it was a new regulation
That’s why they were the subject of deportation

They were the subject of racial discrimination
Practiced by a sovereign nation
Used and abused then thrown away
Has anything changed, who can say, who can say?

Deportation, deportation, deportation, deportation
Deportation, deportation, deportation, deportation
Deportation

Music composed and performed by Paul Odiase BMI No. 1252265 (Switzerland)
Song lyrics by Paul Robert Thomas PRS No. 497904008 (London)
PRS Tunecode 506649FM