The song refers to various historical figures and groups from English left-wing, anarchist and Utopian movements.
"Red Ken" is Ken Livingstone, a Labour politician and former Mayor of London.
Tony Benn, also known as Anthony Wedgwood-Benn, is another idealistic 20th-century politician from the Labour Party.
William Blake is a British poet, whose works included a poem called "Jerusalem" (later set to music as a very popular hymn) with its vision of the Kingdom of God, i.e. Jerusalem, built "in England's green and pleasant land".
William Morris was a late nineteenth-century utopian, artist and libertarian socialist.
The Fabian Society was a British socialist movement, advocating gradualist rather than revolutionary reform. Tony Benn was a Fabian.
Muggletonians, Ranters and Quakers were religious sects with an emphasis on a personal relationship with God, with pacifist and egalitarian ideals. Only the Quakers still exist.
The Levellers and the Diggers were two early Utopian anarchist movements, who claimed common ownership of the land, and were heavily repressed by landowners and vested interests.
"Oh I love the Union" may be a reference to trade unionism; it could also be a reference to Britain as a whole, as created by the Act of Union that joined England and Scotland.
The 'olde trip to Jerusalem' is presumably therefore any movement to create an ideal society in England, the song focusing here particularly on groups or individuals whose visions stressed socialism, anarchism, pacifism and egalitarianism as key features of such a society.
The song refers to various historical figures and groups from English left-wing, anarchist and Utopian movements.
"Red Ken" is Ken Livingstone, a Labour politician and former Mayor of London.
Tony Benn, also known as Anthony Wedgwood-Benn, is another idealistic 20th-century politician from the Labour Party.
William Blake is a British poet, whose works included a poem called "Jerusalem" (later set to music as a very popular hymn) with its vision of the Kingdom of God, i.e. Jerusalem, built "in England's green and pleasant land".
William Morris was a late nineteenth-century utopian, artist and libertarian socialist.
The Fabian Society was a British socialist movement, advocating gradualist rather than revolutionary reform. Tony Benn was a Fabian.
Muggletonians, Ranters and Quakers were religious sects with an emphasis on a personal relationship with God, with pacifist and egalitarian ideals. Only the Quakers still exist.
The Levellers and the Diggers were two early Utopian anarchist movements, who claimed common ownership of the land, and were heavily repressed by landowners and vested interests.
"Oh I love the Union" may be a reference to trade unionism; it could also be a reference to Britain as a whole, as created by the Act of Union that joined England and Scotland.
The 'olde trip to Jerusalem' is presumably therefore any movement to create an ideal society in England, the song focusing here particularly on groups or individuals whose visions stressed socialism, anarchism, pacifism and egalitarianism as key features of such a society.