Unreleased Bill Fox song soundtracks Occupy Wall Street

Last year, at a rare in-store performance at Lost Weekend Records, Cleveland’s Bill Fox played a tune called “Men Who are Guilty of Crimes.” I don’t know when he wrote it, but it felt particularly timely last summer, given that the cleanup of the BP oil spill was ongoing and the song implored Congress to “put the blame on BP.”

Ex-Clevelander Michael Nigro realized the song’s 2011 potential as the anthem for the Occupy Wall Street movement and tracked down a recording of the unreleased tune to soundtrack an OWS video montage called “Faces, Signs and Sentiments at Occupy Wall Street.” Check it out, above. (HT: I Rock Cleveland.)

Bill Fox was slated to play the Megacity Music Marathon last month at Woodlands Tavern but couldn’t make it. Fortunately, he’s coming back to town Nov. 5 for a show at Cafe Bourbon St., along with two acoustic sets from Jim McKeivier and Marcy Mays (doors at 9pm, $6).

“Men Who Are Guilty of Crimes” lyrics:

Oh canvassers, activists, congressmen plead
Put the blame down on Dow, put the blame on BP
But the ones who are guilty are the ones we don’t see
These men are guilty of crimes

Polluters of earth, they stand far away
They lay in their mansions, they hide away
Send down their lawyers, send them for pay
To get themselves out of their crimes

Now this earth is yours and this earth is mine
This earth has been trampled for a sad design
Children are poisoned, there’s lives on the line
These men are guilty of crimes

Crimes against love, crimes against birth
Crimes against women and flesh of the earth
Crimes by the men who would lead us to dearth
These men are guilty of crimes

In a downtown skyline, towers they leap
To the birds of the air where the soil’s not deep
And every day there are contracts to keep
Signed by men who are guilty of crimes

Crimes against me, crimes against you
Crimes against many for the profit of few
What can be done? What will we do?
These men are guilty of crimes

Then a courtroom, some corporate judge will sound
Pounding his gavel with the lights all around
And the only ones who will not be found…
Men who are guilty of crimes