There's A Good Time Coming Poem by Dr Ian Inkster

There's A Good Time Coming [1846, John Mackay]

There's A Good Time Coming [1846, John Mackay]


I have entered this to save the poem and convert it into a song that might be of interest at the present time. Written in 1846 with full reference to the white-man slavery of the industrial revolution and the Chartist reform agitation of this decade this verse deserves some drama. We might argue that the cotton mills and factories deserve their blues interpretation, so I have produced this as a strident rock blues song to reflect the parallel and much more abhorrent slavery going on across the other side of the Atlantic, supporting the burgeoning industrial capitalism of what was to be called the Atlantic-system. So its cpmposed in very simple minor chords to reflect a direct nessage.

Mackay's verse comes ot of the more civised or 'moral force' section of the British working class movement, not quite so dangerous or earthy as the physical force material being printed at that time in such places as The English Republic or The Northern Star. but it deserves some modern recognition and the song hopefully bnrings it to life for the 21st century.

we might note in the latter regard that we still live in the midst of war amd iniquity and 'hateful rivalries of creed', indeed although the world is now far more sophisticated, the greater power of arms and communications now secured by states and terrorists alike, make the dangers of life as unstable and insidious as they were in 1846.

Note also that there have been various melodic compositions on the poem, starting with that of the original one by Henry Russell actually in 1846, and more recently by the composer Stephen Foster. Much of the previous work seems either poor or not especially apt for present times. I have kept strictly to the text and a sense of immanence.

Ian Inkster 21 October 2016.