der tod im juni...

"As pilgrims here, we sometimes journey
To who know what; to who know what?
Come and sing this simple story
That god forgot; that life forgot

'Cause don't you know god is disabled?
He is disabled, he is disabled...
Clouds may gather all around you
But he is disabled...

He's no friend to the friendless
And he's the mother of grief
There's only sorrow for tomorrow
Surely, life is too brief
Surely, love is too brief..."

"Short" Background: Death In June is, arguably, the forefather of the neofolk scene - to the point where Douglas Pearce (brainchild and the only constant of the group since the 80s or so) has been joked about tongue-in-cheek fashion for songs consisting of only a one or two chords with spoken word layered. At any rate, DIJ's main controversy arises from the odd fascination with symbolism and lyrical allusions towards the NSDAP and Germany in that era - the name itself is an allusion to the Night of the Long Knives (the death of Ernst Roehm).

It would be easy to able Death In June a neo-Nazi band at this point; however, Pearce is openly gay and has played in Israel to a significant crowd; along with displaying an Israeli flag on his website for a while in apparent commemoration of the concert, Pearce's true connections to white supremacist ideology and/or to any neo-Nazi scene are at best highly doubtable. Of course, this discounts the fact of the Sparta-esque homosexuality of the entire SA division, and other various trivia, which brings a heavy ambiguity in the work of DIJ. His fetish with Nazi symbols (the Totenkopf, SS division insignia, and runic symbols have featured in album art before), however, are another matter in concerns to political orientation, and seemingly belongs towards the larger picture of the intersection of art and politics rather than true fascistic uprising, or what have you.

Commentary: Song text is lifted from "He's Disabled", off DIJ/Pearce's album But What Ends When The Symbols Shatter?. Text is derived from a Jim Jones (ref.: Jonestown mass suicide) gospel album titled He's Able, released 1973. The title is an obvious play on the original title song and is a re-interpretation, and along with other songs on But What Ends..., demonstrate affinity for subverting the People's Temple songs in a style reminiscent of Laibachian intervention. Another good tune from DIJ is a collaboration with Der Blutharsch, entitled "Many Enemies Bring Much Honour".

Sources: I don't quite remember, but it includes everything2 and, of course, Wikipedia once more for the broader introduction. There is also a great piece contra to DIJ supporters and fans that is interesting to read; see Stewart Home's riposte to the supposed enjoyed "ambiguity" of DIJ imagery, along with his essay on Sol Invictus and Boyd Rice.