M19 Bar in Levenshulme, Manchester are playing host to a special Beatles night on Friday, and I just couldn’t resist the offer of playing it.

The Beatles AcousticFest kicks off at 7pm and features a range of artists (including little old me) playing a mix of originals and Beatles covers.

I’m going to let my hair down and so only one of my set won’t be from The Fab Four (well, The Fab Three and Ringo).

Keeping with a Beatles theme, even the self-penned song that I’ll be singing is called John Lennon Said, which is from my forthcoming album We Can Make The World Stop.

Full details are on the gigs page, so hope to see you on Friday with your mopheads and your yeah yeah yeah’s.

To see the story that inspired the John Lennon Said song, see the vid below.

How can you change the world if you can’t change you?

That’s the question I ask in one of the tracks in my forthcoming album ‘We Can Make The World Stop’.

It’s one that has been a recurring theme for me in the last couple of years as I’ve encountered more than my fair share of wolves in left clothing.

‘Credentials’

They seem to think that treating people like dirt is a way of affirming their working class credentials.

They’re a very small minority but they piss me off no end.

So this is just for them.

Bosses

Firstly, treating people like shite is what the bosses do. So why do you do it?

Respect

Secondly, respect for others is not a middle class value.

It’s a working class value. It’s at the core of the finest and noblest movements that WE have built.

Stop pretending that respect for others is theirs. It’s not. It’s ours. Don’t give it away just because you’re not capable of it yet.

Abusing other people doesn’t make you part of the Left. It puts you firmly outside of it.

Values

Cheer whatever left cause you like. If you can’t act in accordance with those values yourself, you’re no better than a boss, and you’re certainly not a comrade.

In fact, it makes you look like the hypocrite that you are.

You’re not on the left, you’re just at the bottom so you’ve somehow sidled up to us. If you were doing better you wouldn’t touch us with a barge pole and you know it.

Genuine

But I see right through you, because I have too many genuine comrades to compare you with.

Yes, the personal is political and the way you treat other people matters.

Don’t talk to me about changing the world – not until you can first change yourself.

Put this smile back on her face

Just before I left for Tolpuddle at the weekend I got some unpleasant news.

My bezzie mate Shaz, known to you as The Woolly on my video clips, had all of her camera equipment robbed while in Manchester.

And I mean the lot!!

Devastated

She is utterly devastated. Photography is her life.

She is so generous with her skills. So many local musicians have benefited from her doing photo shoots for them for free.

Good Karma

So I decided it was time for some of that good karma to come back her way.

I’ve set up a way to chip in and help Shaz replace at least some of her photography stuff.

Even the smallest donation will help. Every penny counts.

Click here to help http://parrysongs.co.uk/go/?page_id=418

Thanks to you all for your humanity and support.

Cheryl at PCS has just sent me a lovely video of our day in Shrewsbury supporting the campaign for Justice for the Shrewsbury 24.

It features my song My Name Is Dessie Warren.

This report has just come through from the Labournet UK website, reproduced in full below:

Radical singer Alun Parry was on guitar as the audience queued up for Leonard Cohen outside the Liverpool Arena on Tuesday night.

“Hey Leonard hear us yell, please do not play Israel…

Hey Leonard I’m a fan, but I’m so disappointed man…

2, 4, 6, 8, Apartheid is the thing we hate

3, 5, 7, 9, Freedom for the people of Palestine, Freedom for the people of Palestine…”

Leonard Cohen still plans to play in Tel-Aviv on 24 September, but Alun Parry, singing through a megaphone and surrounded by an impromptu chorus, banner and placards got straight through to the huge audience, many of whom did not know of Cohen’s plans.

Approaching from the dock road, they had already encountered Liverpool Friends of Palestine on a megaphone with their banner “End the Siege of Gaza, No to Ethnic Cleansing, Speak out for the Palestinians”.

Walking to the Arena, the fans found another 30 activists wearing new “Boycott Israeli Goods” t-shirts and dishing out 2000 leaflets. With a few hostile exceptions, people showed they agreed, or were willing to debate it!

It’s not his fault! But he can choose not to go!

You can’t tell an artist where to play! So Picasso should have exhibited Guernica in Berlin?

Leonard Cohen is Jewish, he has the Right of Return. What about the Palestinian Right of Return?

Why are you picking on him? It’s not him, it’s them! The Israelis committed war crimes in Gaza. They need to get the message, boycott, divestment and sanctions…

On Monday, Halton Community Radio had interviewed Leon Rosselson in depth on Cohen, the cultural boycott, and the big question – is a gig just a gig, or do music and politics mix?

Last night on the Mersey, they mixed all right.

Do write to Cohen’s manager Robert Kory, on rkory@rkmgment.com, to give him the news.

Report by Greg Dropkin of Labournet
Photos by Tom Bimpson and Jeremy Hawthorne