Began my 42nd trip around the sun yesterday, ya’ll. As is stated in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
42 is “the answer to life, the universe, and everything.”
Enjoy my video gift to you all:
People
Keep on learnin’
Soldiers
Keep on warrin’
World,
Keep on turnin’
Cause it won’t be too long.
Powers
Keep on lyin’,
While your people
Keep on dyin’
World,
Keep on turnin’,
Cause it won’t be too long.
Chorus:
I’m so darn glad He let me try it again,
‘Cause my last time on earth I lived a whole world of sin.
I’m so glad that I know more than I knew then.
Gonna keep on tryin’ till I reach the highest ground.
Teachers,
Keep on teachin’
Preachers,
Keep on preachin’,
World, keep on turnin’,
‘Cause it won’t be too long.
Oh, no
Lovers,
Keep on lovin’
While believers
Keep on believin’.
Sleepers,
Just stop sleepin’
‘Cause it won’t be too long.
Oh, no!
Chorus
(Spoken) An’ Stevie knows that, uh, no-body’s gonna bring me down.
Till I reach the highest ground.
(Spoken) ’cause me ‘n’ Stevie, see, we’re gonna be a sailin’ on the funky sound
Till I reach the highest ground.
(Spoken) Bustin’ out, an I’ll break you out, ’cause I’m sailin’ on.
Till I reach the highest ground
(Spoken)Just, uh, sailin’ on sailin’ on the higher ground
Till I reach the highest ground
Thanks to all for reading my blog,
-BB
This week is a salute to a poet whose brilliance, honestly, has me feeling uncharacteristically timid as I proceed to write. Walk with me out on the wire… I perhaps hear him saying to me.
On both Tuesday and Wednesday nights I stayed up late hoping to see some of the meteor shower expected in the skies in those nights. On Tuesday night in Oakland it was foggy, so no luck that night. On Wednesday night, we had pretty clear skies but for whatever reason I was again without any luck seeing the shower. But what I did get to do is listen to some clips on YouTube while I was allowing the clock to tick past my usual bedtime hour by quite a bit— and I’m actually a bit of a night owl already. And when I came across the video at the bottom of this post I guess I found myself reminded of some of my guitar-playing moments where I’d learn a song by listening to it either with a tape player or a cd player, playing it back over and over again until I got it. It’s actually quite tedious— neurotic, some might say— to stop and rewind and play again, and stop and rewind and play again… and again… and again. It’s not for everyone, I assure you. But there’s a certain intimate, even hypnotic, suggestion that comes through the practice that only those who endure it could probably ever appreciate.
But in this moment, I was not rewinding with any hopes of picking up the chords and notes of the guitar riffs. It was the poetry I was after. It was the cadence and the word choices that always represent far more than the words alone possibly could. This total is immeasurably beyond the sum of its parts. In these moments of such demanding examination of a work of art, in essence we are asking the artist to show us how. We are asking the artist to reveal how he found those words. We ask for an insight perhaps beyond our invitation so that maybe as aspiring writers maybe we, too, can see the very process of inspiration— especially on that level. I think we ask of the artist simply, how can one view the world around him and pick out the jewels of inspiration so well? So incredibly well.
And as any great work of art will do, these intimate requests are rewarded from this persistence. Eventually she gives in to the flattery with a return stare slightly longer than expected and allows you, her subject, an ephemeral glimpse deeper. She affirms your sincerity, modestly acquiescing, and shares your admiration of nuance and subtlety. And once granted such a moment by a piece of art, perhaps then one has genuinely encountered a willing muse of inspiration… where the words spoken reveal far more in symbol and the pulse of their delivery beckons distant ears.
Indeed, I do listen… and hear… and repeat. I gotta know how it feels. I wanna know if it’s wild, I wanna know if it’s real.
One post script:
During the writing of this post I heard news of the great Les Paul passing at age 94. It’s hard to over-estimate how his inventions opened the doors for volumes and volumes of new music in many different genres, including of course rock ‘n roll. So, if you have a moment check out this video of The Les Paul and Mary Ford at Home show in 1953. Rest in peace, Lester William Polsfuss (1915-2009).
(Full Screen and High Volume Recommended)
In the evening, When the day is done
I’m looking for a woman, but the girl don’t come
So don’t let her, Play you for a fool
She don’t show no pity baby, she don’t make no rules
*Chorus: Oh, oh, I need your love, I need your love
Oh, I need your love, I just got to have
So don’t you let her, Oh, get under your skin
It’s only bad luck and trouble, From the day that you begin
I hear you crying in the darkness, Don’t ask nobody’s help
Ain’t no pockets full of mercy baby, Cause you can only blame yourself
Chorus
Oh it’s simple, All the pain that you go through
You can turn away from fortune, fortune, Cause that’s all that’s left to you
It’s lonely at the bottom, Man, it’s dizzy at the top
But if you’re standing in the middle, Ain’t no way you’re gonna stop
Chorus
Oh whatever that your days may bring
No use hiding in a corner, Cause that won’t change a thing
If you’re dancing in the doldrums, One day soon, it’s got to stop, it’s got to stop
When you’re the master of the off-chance, When you don’t expect a lot
Chorus
— Jones/Page/Plant
Just needed to rock one out today, ya’ll.
— BB
I cannot deny that the succession of Ed, then Farrah, and then Michael passing this week has startled me. And while I wouldn’t place any of these entertainers at the top of my list of influences I still feel that somehow in the time of only a week an entire era has just passed us by. And indeed I pause because there’s no question that for me, the era itself was quite influential… as I suspect many others would also attest for themselves. Perhaps that thought alone startles me as much as anything.
As the news-reporters interview people around the world, who all seem genuinely stunned after the Michael Jackson news, I find myself thinking these questions about us everyday Americans: WHO DIDN’T grow up listening to Michael Jackson’s music? What young man in the 70s DIDN’T see visions of Farrah Fawcett in his carnal dreams? What person DOESN’T remember the Ed McMahon laughter as an icon in itself from The Tonight Show?
And maybe if we honor that familiar, altruistic generosity of the biggest single pop star the world has ever seen, perhaps our mourning of Michael Jackson should actually reaffirm this great capacity for inclusiveness with prayers for the other two— and for all from that era— much like his music magically carried along with it so many from any background, ethnicity, or nationality. We possibly cannot over estimate the impact on the people of the world as the news spreads to the furthest reaches. Probably not since Princess Diana died has such an icon left the proverbial stage.
As I turn down the chatter on the television of reporters trying to “get the story” I find myself thinking how there is something from childhood that we never lose: how we love to amuse and to BE amused. And at first glance of the lifestyle of Michael Jackson we maybe do dismiss him in the most recent years as excessively dizzied by amusements— perhaps even to an immoral and illegal level. But there is no denying that as an artist and performer Michael lived for the adoration of the audience who fueled his inspirations and delivered back to him in that adoration the one and only measurement of his art that mattered to him. This extraordinary, reciprocal devotion truly was, and perhaps always will be, what legitimately coronates the King of Pop.
Maybe you’ll be reminded over and over this weekend of every little thing about Michael Jackson— and maybe it will become somewhat tiresome— but whether you had any connection to the music of Michael Jackson or not, a huge percentage of the population of the world mourns the loss of this human being whose music crossed the sometimes impenetrable borders of our world with a message reminding us that WE ALL “can ride the boogie and share that beat of love”.
And to me, that really is fantastic! So if you’ve come along this far in this post, please click below to enjoy MY favorite Michael Jackson tune in the video below. And if you turn it up loud enough maybe Ed and Farrah will hear you too.
Girl, close your eyes
Let that rhythm, get into to you
Don’t try to fight it
There ain’t nothin’ that you can do
Relax your mind
Lay back and groove with mine
You gotta feel the heat
And we can ride the boogie
Share that beat of love
(chorus)
I wanna rock with you (all night)
Dance you in the day (sunlight)
I wanna rock with you (all night)
We’re gonna rock the night away
Out on the floor
There ain’t nobody there but us
Girl, when you dance
There’s a magic that must be love
Just take it slow
‘Cause we got so far to go
When you feel that heat
And we gunna ride the boogie
Share that beat of love
(chorus)
And when the grove is dead and gone
yeah, u no that love survives
so we can rock forever
I wanna rock with you
I wanna groove with you
I wanna rock with you
Iwanna groove with you
Rock (all night)
Girl, (sunlight)
Rock with you, rock with you,(all night)yeah
Dance the night away (rock rock)
(chorus)
Feel the beat, feel the beat woo
Rock you in the day (sunlight)
I wanna rock (all night)
Rock the night away
— Michael Jackson
The first time I heard this song was in about 1987 when on a warm summer night in Memphis two friends and I drove a 1970 Fiat 124 Spider downtown to the Mud Island Amphitheatre to go to the Crosby, Stills and Nash concert that night. I remember distinctly after the first couple chords were strummed and David Crosby bellowed out the first line “Almost cut my hair” how cathartic groans erupted across the audience and many stood up as if to salute a legitimate anthem beginning. I didn’t know what I was in for, but I knew it would be something to remember right then and there.
It returned to my mind the other day as I was thinking about what to write for a blog post this week. I found myself remembering some of the journey that has passed since that summer in Memphis in 1987. And I remembered how much this song touched me that evening perhaps as it’s truly meant to: as a reminder of how we can sometimes allow ourselves to give up for no good reason; how we can sometimes procrastinate and declare that “when I finally get my shit together” I’ll get to it; how we can sometimes grow complacent and let dreams pass by as if they really weren’t that important.
I remember a huge eruption to this line:
But I didn’t and I wonder why
I feel like letting my freak flag fly
And I feel like I owe it, to someone
I imagine hearing the poetry in the context of historical time and believe many listeners would perhaps think of those they knew who died in the Vietnam War; or who suffered in some other conflict; or who were at the time engaged in some cause greater than themselves. And I believe, like many others, that I interpret the “hair” as the grand symbol of this immeasurable courage and perseverance possessed by those who stand up for the highest ideals in the face of whatever resistance they may have to face. So in gratitude to these great warriors who stand up for others, perhaps many joined in solidarity by growing their hair. As if to say, I am with you… I am part of this cause too. I owe it, to someone.
But to open the song with the almost melancholy admission of defeat, Almost cut my hair, I feel we listeners are immediately reminded of that moment we’ve all had where we’ve fallen from that state of grace. And the immediate self-inquiry that follows in the line, But I didn’t and I wonder why, says it all. It says that following my ideals and maintaining my insistence upon fighting for a cause greater than myself have grown inconvenient for me. They’re in the way. My life is being impacted by my long hair, man. But something inside me says I’ve got to hang on. I can’t cut my hair!
And the truth is that’s exactly what it’s doing. That path IS going to change you. And the struggle for such ideals as civil rights, or ending a war, or for whatever release you may be seeking IS GOING TO BE AN INCONVENIENCE. It’s going to get in the way. Right now as I write this, you might take a moment and think about the political prisoners being held around the world for a variety of reasons. Some, you may believe, are being held unjustly by our own government. Bloggers in Egypt, for example, have been jailed for expressing their criticisms of their government’s policies. Two are being held in North Korea sentenced this week to twelve years of hard labor for reporting on a story deemed by the accusing regime as harmful to the nation of North Korea. Twelve years of hard labor; think about that. For one of these girls, it was her first overseas assignment.
Sometimes we give in. Sometimes we lose faith in ourselves. Sometimes we forget these causes greater than ourselves actually DO need us.
Click here to join a petition by Amnesty International for Laura Ling and Euna Lee.
Sometimes we need to grow our hair… and let our freak flags fly. Cause we owe it, to someone.
Almost cut my hair
It happened just the other day
It’s gettin’ kind of long
I could’ve said it was in my way
But I didn’t and I wonder why
I feel like letting my freak flag fly
And I feel like I owe it, to someone
Must be because I had the flu for Christmas
And I’m not feeling up to par
It increases my paranoia
Like looking in my mirror and seeing a police car
But I’m not giving in an inch to fear
çause I’ve promised myself this year
I feel like I owe it, to someone
When I finally get my SHIT together
I’m gonna get down in that sunny southern weather
And I find a place inside to laugh,
Separate the wheat from the chaff
I feel …
Like I owe it, to someone, yeah
— David Crosby
So last weekend I saw the documentary Pete Seeger: The Power of Song and since then I’ve been somewhat obsessed with learning more about this extraordinary man. As the many folk songs he either wrote or was associated with (and made famous) came up during the film I found myself humming along with melodies and lyrics I’ve known since early childhood. From Turn! Turn! Turn! and If I Had a Hammer, to We Shall Overcome and This Land Is Your Land the resonance of these simple songs with so much sweetness and backboned grittiness had my toe tappin’ and had my internal history mill churnin’. Some of my favorite memories from elementary school in Walnut Creek, CA were when our favorite flower-child guitar player/singer, Kola Khanta, came by to strum her six-string and sing folk songs to us kids. Indeed, This Land Is Your Land was always a favorite getting all the kids and adults alike to sing along. And interestingly enough, it is the whole sing-along concept that illuminates both the great vitality of these tunes to this day and characterizes this art form as not only just entertainment, but as a pathway to our collective social conscience.
Now when you peruse the YouTube clips of Pete Seeger it is hard to believe that the fella strummin’ this banjo and singing these campfire songs (like this one here for example) could really be such an iconic figure in America’s history for the social movements of labor rights, civil rights, peace and the environment. But without question, in each of these he was not just a leader, he was a sort of pied piper whose earthy and simple messages spoke volumes against some powerful foes— each of whom fell one by one in their challenges of him as time passed by. In the 1930s and 40s, Pete was part of the Young Communist League seemingly gravitating toward their ideals because he shared their advocacy for the nascent American labor movement and for the egalitarian concept of non-discrimination and civil rights. For a large number of us Americans these days it’s hard to recall an America that was not sympathetic to these ideals. But, boy the “good old days” really were different back then— especially if you were African-American, or Jewish, or wanted to be part of a labor union. After being subpoenaed to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s and facing demands to name associates, profess religious and political preferences, and even disclose his voting history, Pete refused. And it was not the Fifth Amendment that he pled… it was the First Amendment. After receiving a charge of contempt of Congress for which he was convicted and later had thrown out on appeal, his consistent response to why he stood up to the power under such duress was that he “… never believed the American people would stand for such a thing.” Indeed, these intrusions into the privacy of an American citizen are seen as completely outrageous in our current era, and they were just as wrong then as they are today.
Like a great American, he stood up for his First Amendment right to free speech. But nevertheless, this anti-Communist frenzy in America now so commonly identified with Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy managed to bar Pete Seeger from broadcast radio and television performances in the United States for seventeen years. During that time a lesser artist would have hung it up and found something else to devote himself to. But, Pete did not. In fact, his efforts were shifted to performing around the world, to protesting the injustice of the Vietnam War, and to building a movement that would later come to be symbolized by a hand-built sailing schooner named the Clearwater which sailed the Hudson River to attract attention to the cause of cleaning up the toxic river. And even in 1967, after his ban from television was lifted, his performance of the war protest song Waist Deep in the Big Muddy was censored by CBS and cut out from being part of the Smothers Brothers variety show— only later to be put back in to a later episode due to popular outcry.
One by one, the foes fell to the charismatic folk singer— the bigger they are the harder they fall. And during this bleak period where he was banned from broadcasts the only forum that remained open to him was performing sing-alongs in the elementary schools. It was believed by government officials, according to the documentary film, that his subversive influences were surely diminished enough in his performances for children. Once again, the story unfolds quite unlike expected. Contrary to the mission of the censors, Pete influenced a whole new generation to really listen to folk music, to listen to the words, and to choose the sing-along as a marching anthem for their causes. Many young kids learned (or at least tried) to play the banjo as a result of lessons he filmed and distributed. Many young kids heard the messages about simple morals of love and peace and non-violent civil disobedience. And in 1965 the pop group The Byrds immortalized his song Turn! Turn! Turn! which spent eleven weeks as a number 1 Billboard hit.
On May 3rd of this year, Pete Seeger turned 90 years old. His birthday was celebrated at Madison Square Garden in New York City with a cast of superstars including Bruce Springsteen, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn, and many more. In his later years he has received many awards including the Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Honor, where President Clinton spoke before the award was bestowed and described him as “…an inconvenient artist who dared to sing things as he saw them.” But in this week of learning about Pete Seeger I have to say that two significant, and surprising, discoveries happened for me along the way:
The first regards arguably one of the greatest foes he faced in his lifetime: New York Representative Samuel Dickstein, who was Vice-Chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. In a book by a former Archivist of the United States released in the year 2000 titled The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America— the Stalin Era, the author Allen Weinstein contends that in papers found in the Moscow archives in the 1990s the Soviet spy agency NKVD authorized payments of $1250 per month to Representative Dickstein from 1937-1940 ostensibly to obtain information on secret Congressional information on anti-communist and anti-fascist forces. Though apparently no direct evidence confirms Representative Dickstein provided any secret information, the author states there is evidence of his being paid by the Soviet spy agency.
And the second, perhaps more important, discovery for me was how Pete Seeger is known to be the father of the folk music revival of the 1960s in America and how his sweet and charismatic odes to peace and brotherhood and sing-along poetry influenced so many lyricists of the folk genre of the 1960s. Songs like Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, We Shall Overcome, and even Kumbayah are hardly starry-eyed genuflections to unrealistic ideals. These are spiritual anthems of our common era whose sometimes irrepressibly poetic vitality have inspired generations to sing along, and which unquestionably opened a door for another one of our most influential poetic masters to find a stage with an audience aching to hear his words and rhythms. Please click on the video below:
The great truth that I got out of this research is that our historical era is quite blessed by the inclusion of Pete Seeger. And while, time after time, those interviewed for the film who know him seemed to want to defiantly describe him as a “Great American”, I think it suffices to say that while Pete Seeger is both idealistic and strong-willed, he has evolved through his art as a great man would. And for generations, we his audience, through singing along, evolved too.