Everybody Knows – Leonard Cohen – I wish they did!

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Following the election, where the majority voted to keep the poor poor and the rich rich, I was playing this Leonard Cohen song. It seemed to resonate with the stupidity and greed of the times.

The poor stay poor, the rich get rich

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost

Everybody knows the captain lied.

Everybody talked to their pockets.

“Everybody Knows”
(originally by Leonard Cohen)
(from “Justice League” soundtrack)

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knowsEverybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long-stem rose
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you’ve been faithful
Oh, give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you’ve been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows that it’s now or never
Everybody knows that it’s me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
When you’ve done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe’s still picking cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the plague is coming
Everybody knows that it’s moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there’s gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you’re in trouble
Everybody knows what you’ve been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it’s coming apart
Take one last look at this sacred heart
Before it blows
Everybody knows

The main trouble is that not everybody knows. The ones being shafted still vote for the ones doing the shafting.

Richie Havens – The Klan – lyrics about the terrorism of the Klu Klux Klan.

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Richie Havens – The Klan – lyrics about the terrorism of the Klu Klux Klan.

ritchie_havens_650Featured Image -- 1991

In this day and age it is easy to think of terrorism as something perpetrated by religious fanatics, brainwashed and packed off with their bombs to blow up innocent people in trains, planes, mosques and buses. That is not always the case.

The Ku Klux Klan were a terrorist organisation with the sole intent of maintaining White Supremacy by instigating terror in the Southern Black population.

They used hoods, burning crosses, pseudo-Christian rhetoric and gibberish and weren’t above threats, beatings, shootings, arson and lynching to make a point. They ruled through terror.

It took a brave man to stand up to the Klan. Their reach was long, forgiveness none and retribution vicious.

Where evil lives it is up to all good people to stand up and oppose it!

The Klan

The countryside was cold and still
There were three crosses upon the hill
Each one wore a burning hood
To hide its rotten heart of wood

And I cried
Father I hear the iron sound
Hoofbeats on the frozen ground

Down from the hills the riders came
Lord, it was a crying shame
To see the blood upon their whips
And hear the snarling of their lips

And I cried
Mother I feel a stabbing pain
Blood flows down like a summer rain

Each one wore a mask of white
To hide his cruel face from sight
and each one sucked a hungery breath
Out of the empty lungs of death

And I cried
Sister raise my bloody head
It’s so lonesome to be dead

He who rides with the Klan
He is a devil and not a man
For underneath that white disguise
I have looked into his eyes

Brother, stand with me
it’s not easy to be free

Shine – a rallying call for positivity – and other anthems

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For all that we struggle
For all we pretend
It don’t come down to nothing
Except love in the end
And ours is a road
That is strewn with goodbyes
But as it unfolds
As it all unwinds
Remember your soul is the one thing
You just can’t compromise
Take my hand
We’re gonna go where we can shine
We’re gonna go where we can shine
We’re gonna go where we can shine

I have just completed my exercise and have my IPod on random. Serendipity comes up with some great stuff doesn’t it?

This was the sequence:

Sixty Minute Man – Bill Ward & Dominoes

New Amsterdam – Elvis Costello

Down on the mainspring, listen to the tick tock
Clock all the faces that move in on your block
Twice shy and dog tired because you’ve been bitten
Everything you say now sounds like it was ghost-written

Back in London they’ll take you to heart after a little while
Though I look right at home I still feel like an exile

Somehow I found myself down at the dockside
Thinking of the old days of Liverpool and Rotherhide
The transparent people who live on the other side
Living a life that is almost like suicide

Shine – David Gray

For all that we struggle
For all we pretend
It don’t come down to nothing
Except love in the end
And ours is a road
That is strewn with goodbyes
But as it unfolds
As it all unwinds
Remember your soul is the one thing
You just can’t compromise
Take my hand
We’re gonna go where we can shine
We’re gonna go where we can shine
We’re gonna go where we can shine

Psycho – The Fall

Spit on the streets
[Your heads and teeth]
Got nowhere to go
other than shows
Could never love
And the Psycho-Mafia
I’m talking about love
Psycho-Mafia
No soul in discos
No rock in the clubs
Bullheads in the pubs
And the city jobs
Could never love
And the Psycho-Mafia
Could never love
Psycho-Mafia
Psycho-Mafia
Psycho-Mafia
‘cho Mafia
‘cho Mafia
Spit in the streets
[your heads and teeth]
Our eyes are red
Our brains are dead
Going on about drugs
Psycho-Mafia
Could never love
Psycho-Mafia

Cool Ruler – Gregory Isaacs

so going tell it to the nation, enemies, and friends
my gosh
cool ruler come again.
I was only taking a nap – my gosh
but till every man that types wrap – lord & mercy
someones hoping and predicting for a flap
but disya sound it are nonestop
http://www.lyricsofsong.com/w/krkpln
me come ya fee rule dancehall – lord & mercy
me come ya fee rugby and smaller
so going tell it to the nation, enemies, and friend
my god
cool ruler come again.

I was only taking a nap – my gosh

I found something in all of them.

Loudhailer Electric Light Company at O’Rileys Hull – Photos

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The Loudhailer Electric Light Company performed another fabulous gig of psychedelic sounds at O’Riley’s.

Fabulous songs of Night Herons, Dragons, Morpheus and Dark Guitars – Sci-Fi and beyond from the fabulous Leconauts:

Here’s a few photos

Work In Progress gig – at O’Rileys in Hull – Photos

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Another great gig from Work in Progress – great Americana song. I particularly like the Steve Earle – Johnny Come Lately, Wagon Wheel and Sitting On Top of the World.

Great to hear Dexter’s great fiddling! Much better than when the politicians do it with their expenses!!

Here’s a few photos:

Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key – Lyrics by Woody Guthrie – Sung by Billy Bragg

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Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key – Lyrics by Woody Guthrie – Sung by Billy Bragg

Woody Guthrie

Now I idolise Woody Guthrie and I really like Billy Bragg. So when the Woody Guthrie family wanted someone to put some of Woody’s words to music I was delighted. I was not disappointed. The album Mermaid Avenue was brilliant. I play it a lot. Wilco were OK too.

Woody Guthrie left a huge archive of material – apart from his hundreds of songs and his novels, there were thousands of scraps of paper with doodlings, songs, fragments of writing, letters and drawings. Thankfully they are being preserved by the Guthrie Foundation. Woody Guthrie is a major person on the world stage – up there with the very best. He’s a treasure.

This song I love because it really sums up how I feel about myself. There was and hasn’t been anybody like Woody Guthrie. He is a complete law unto himself. He did everything his own way. The result was genius.

I may not have the genius but that is how I approach my life. I do what I do how I want to without regard to whether it makes sense, is good or relates to others. I am my world’s worst enemy. But what you get is always me.

This song resonates with me.

Way over Yonder in the Minor Key – Woody Guthrie/Billy Bragg

I lived in a place called Okfuskee
And I had a little girl in a holler tree
I said, “Little girl, it’s plain to see
Ain’t nobody that can sing like me
Ain’t nobody that can sing like me”

She said, “It’s hard for me to see
How one little boy got so ugly”
Yes, my little girly, that might be
But there ain’t nobody that can sing like me
Ain’t nobody that can sing like me

Way over yonder in the minor key
Way over yonder in the minor key
There ain’t nobody that can sing like me

We walked down by the Buckeye Creek
To see the frog eat the goggle eye bee
To hear that west wind whistle to the east
There ain’t nobody that can sing like me
Ain’t nobody that can sing like me

Oh my little girly, will you let me see
Where over yonder where the wind blows free?
Nobody can see in our holler tree
And there ain’t nobody that can sing like me
Ain’t nobody that can sing like me

Way over yonder in the minor key
Way over yonder in the minor key
There ain’t nobody that can sing like me

Her mama cut a switch from a cherry tree
And laid it on to she and me
It stung lots worse than a hive of bees
But there ain’t nobody that can sing like me
Ain’t nobody that can sing like me

Now I have walked a long long ways
I still look back to my Tanglewood days
I’ve led lots of girlies since then to stray
Saying, “Ain’t nobody that can sing like me
Ain’t nobody that can sing like me”

Way over yonder in the minor key
Way over yonder in the minor key
Ain’t nobody that can sing like me

Way over yonder in the minor key
Way over yonder in the minor key
Ain’t nobody that can sing like me
Ain’t nobody that can sing like me

Photography – Elvis’s family house in Tupelo

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Photography – Elvis’s family house in Tupelo

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Photography – Swamp Blues – Lazy Lester in London

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Photography – Swamp Blues – Lazy Lester in London

Swamp Blues has always been a favourite of mine. I fell in love with an album called Swamp Blues in 1965. The names alone – Slim Harpo, Lazy Lester, Lightnin Slim, Lonesome Sundown and Whispering Smith seemed to say it all. They were recordings from the fabulous Excello Label produced by JD Jay Miller in Louisiana.

They were favourites of the Sixties Beat groups too – the Kinks, Stones and Yardbirds did their share.

I never got to see any of them perform. Most are dead now. But then Lazy Lester had a gig in London in 2012 and I took my younger son to see a legend.

I was fortunate enough not only to see a great concert but to crash a photo session and have a chat with the man himself. He was a bit cantankerous but he let me in and that is great. The man’s a legend – he not only produced the brilliant ‘I’m A Lover Not a Fighter’ himself but backed most of the other big names and even a lot of Country & Western Stars.

True to form he did a searing set but refused to play his only hit!

Here’s the photos I took.

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Photography – Dave ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards – the man who was there at the beginning of Rock.

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Photography – Dave ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards – the man who was there at the beginning of Rock.

I saw Dave ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards in Sheffield in 2009. I had just come back from Mississippi where I looked but could not find any Blues. Then I came home and T-Model Ford was playing in York and Dave in Sheffield.

I’d been all over Mississippi hunting out the old haunts, graves and places where the old Blues guys had played.

I visited all three of Robert Johnson’s graves.

Dave was an amazing guy. He was eighty four when I saw him and died two years later. He was full of life.

I had a chance to have a little chat with him after the show. Dave had been with Robert Johnson playing in that bar in Greenwood in 1938. He told me that Robert had been making eyes at the wife of the barman and had been poisoned with strychnine rat-poison. He became ill and had to go home but they hadn’t expected him to die.

He also told me that the real grave was at the back of the church.

It was incredible to meet a legend who had been there right at the beginning of modern day music. Without the Blues we wouldn’t have had Rock.

I just wonder what it would have been like if Robert Johnson had lived.

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Other contenders for the best year in Rock History – 1956 or 1977

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Other contenders for the best year in Rock History – 1956 or 1977

Well 1956 was really something with a gigantic shift in music with the Advent of Rock ‘n’ Roll:

Elvis Presley

Little Richard

Bo Diddley

Carl Perkins

Chuck Berry

Eddie Cochran

Buddy Holly

Everly Brothers

Jerry Lee Lewis

Fats Domino

 

Or 1977 with the advent of New York New Wave and Punk

Sex Pistols

Stiff Little Fingers

Clash

Blondie

Talking Heads

Ramones

Patti Smith

Television

Buzzcocks

Damned

Ruts

Dead Kennedys

Wayne County

New York Dolls

 

Can either of those compare with 1967? Or has there been any mega shift and burst of nascent creativity since?