Weekend Tunes: The Levellers

Last week, I mentioned that listening to The Pogues turned me on to checking out The Levellers. This would be they.

The band takes its name from a political movement that rose up in the 1600s during the English Civil War. To be a Leveller, back then, was to believe in popular sovereignty, radical democracy, suffrage, religious tolerance and equality before the law. Civil rights, for all, was the name of their game. Levellers fought for many of the things that the left are still reaching for today. Resistance to power, egalitarianism, paganism and a call to action are the threads that have made the cloth of their music since the band first got together back in 1988.