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Crossing Borders

by Diana Jones

/

about

In a an atrocious and punitive move the first transport of asylum seekers was sent today from the UK to Rwanda . This song came about when I was sent a video made in response to recent legislation in the UK Parliament called “The Nationality and Borders Bill.” The bill targets Ukrainian refugees and would criminalize them and other asylum seekers who enter the UK without “proper application.” For most people fleeing for their lives this is impossible. In the video celebrities such as Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson read one line of a refugee’s story, followed by the words “I am a criminal.” I took each of the lines and expanded the stories into verses and wrote a chorus supporting the idea that people who strive to reach borders are desperately trying to survive. I was also thinking of Poland’s response to the war at their border with Ukraine, how they are doing everything to help including welcoming refugees into their homes. This example should give us hope and a template for the rest of the world to follow. The song Crossing Borders To Survive was produced by myself and Steve Addabbo and Joe DeJarnette put a beautiful bass part down and through Facebook I was able to connect with Katie Pawluk, an amazing Ukrainian American fiddle player who brought us all to tears in the control room. The musical tag Katie played at the end of the song is a Ukrainian folksong called Cervona Kalyna, Katie said all Ukrainians would know the song, that it’s a song of hope for Ukraine.

lyrics

Crossing Borders
words and music by Diana Jones
YarjonesMusic(ASCAP)

I am a mother carrying my babies
As the bombs fall from the sky
Oh I don’t know where we’re going
I’m just running for our lives

If somehow we arrive
And meet you on the other side
We are not criminal there is no crime
Crossing borders to survive

I am old now my legs are swollen
I’m walking miles and miles and I hope to be
With my children and my grandchildren
They’re all I have, my family

If somehow I arrive
And meet you on the other side
I am no criminal there is no crime
Crossing borders to survive

Any day now I will deliver
I am pregnant with our first child
My husband left to fight the war
And it’s not safe here anymore.

If somehow I arrive
And meet you on the other side
I am no criminal there is no crime
Crossing borders to survive

I had a birthday I turned thirteen
I lost my parents in the street
The tanks came rolling my mother cried
I don’t know if they’re alive

I have no medicine I have no food
But for grace you are me I am you
We are not criminals there is no crime
Crossing borders to survive

credits

released June 14, 2022
Tenor guitar and vocal: Diana Jones
Fiddle: Katie Pawluk
Bass: Joe DeJarnette
Produced by: Diana Jones and Steve Addabbo

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Diana Jones New York, New York

Award winning, singer songwriter Diana Jones is know for her gritty, literary, and Appalachian songwriting. Her 6th album is Song To A Refugee

“A tender testimony to bruised lives.. Powerful and poetic; a record for our times.
— The Guardian / Observer ★★★★


“Diana Jones’s Song to a Refugee follows in the footsteps of (Woody Guthrie’s) Dust Bowl Ballads.”
— Financial Times ★★★★
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