this song made my hair stand on end

[Batgirl]

Sorry if this has been discussed here-- I can't stay abreast the way I used to. The company I worked for folded early this summer -- now I drive further and work longer hours for less money (don't know how much more of this booming economy I can take.)

One thing I've noticed, spending so much time in the car listening to the radio -- there seems to be a small but burgeoning wave of protest music. And this seems to be happening among what I guess would be considered kind of "alternative country" artists. The flip side of the so-clueless-it-hurts Clint Black types.

This particular song is by a Texas singer songwriter, James McMurtry. I heard it on my way home today. Powerful lyrics delivered in a Texas growl of a voice that really did make my hair stand on end.

Will work for food
Will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks
Let 'em eat jellybeans let 'em eat cake
Let 'em eat shit, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force, or join the Corps
If they can't make it here anymore


http://www.digitalvisionmedia.com/compadre/We_Cant_Band.mp3

[elehhhhna]

1. DAMN! He sang that at Camp Casey the weekend before last...

he's really, reeally, really good.

[Batgirl]

4. that's really good to hear n/t

[elehhhhna]

6. Steve Earle was also wonderful.

Not 2 weeks before I'd played some Steve for a friend & said I sooo want to hear him live. Got to Crawford & there he was.


Truthout has a video link to Steve doing The Revolution Starts Now.

http://www.truthout.org/cindy.shtml

Right side, scroll down.

[LSparkle]

2. Didn't I hear this guy on AAR's "Morning Sedition" a while ago?

He's related to Larry McMurtry the writer (son? brother?) and he was really good. Those lyrics really do rile me, too...

[fudge stripe cookays]

7. James is Larry's son.... n/t

[Jane Eyre]

3. Real country singers, like Johnny Cash

The new country singers are mostly flash and trash. Good country singers like Johnny Cash and the Dixie Chicks are also good Democrats.

[tk2kewl]

5. I am planning on going to see James McMurtry in NYC Oct 22

My younger brother turned me on to him about 14 years ago

[TomInTib]

8. Earlier today on D U...

it was noted that a radio programmer (CA?) was suspended for a week for playing this song.
I have dug McMurtry for years.
His dad is Larry (Lonesome Dove, Last Picture Show).

[ismnotwasm]

9. Very cool

Thanks.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

10. System of a Down..... lyrics for B.Y.O.B. WARNING Offensive

words for many.... I will use the * thingy to take the edge off....

BYOB I believe.... stands for.... "Bring Your Own Bombs".
WHY DO THEY ALWAYS SEND THE POOR!
My god is of spiteful blood with morbid eels.
Victorious, victorious, steel,
Can you stand and kneel?
Marching forward hypocritic
and hypnotic computers.
You depend on our protection,

Yet you feed us lies from the table cloth.
la la la la la la la la la,
Everybody’s going to the party have a real good time.
Dancing in the desert blowing up the sunshine.

kneeling roses disappearing,
into Moses’ dry mouth,
breaking into Fort Knox,
stealing our intentions,
every city gripped in oil,
Crying FREEDOM!

Handed to obsoletion,
Still you feed us lies from the table cloth.
La la la la la la la la la,
Everybody’s going to the party have a real good time.
Dancing in the desert blowing up the sunshine.
Everybody’s going to the party have a real good time.
Dancing in the desert blowing up the sunshine.

Blast off, its Party time,
And we all live in a fascist nation,
Blast off , its party time,
And where the f**k are you?
….. Yeah
Where the f**k are you?
Where the f**k are you?

Why don’t presidents fight the war?
Why do they always send the poor?
Why don’t presidents fight the war?
Why do they always send the poor?

Kneeling roses disappearing,
into Moses’ dry mouth,
breaking into Fort Knox,
stealing our intentions,
every city gripped in oil,
Crying FREEDOM!

Handed to obsoletion,
Still you feed us lies from the tablecloth.
la la la la la la la la la,
Everybody’s going to the party have a real good time.
Dancing in the desert blowing up the sunshine.
Everybody’s going to the party have a real good time.
Dancing in the desert blowing up the sunshine.

Where the f**k are you!
Where the f**k are you!

Why don’t presidents fight the war?
Why do they always send the poor?
Why don’t presidents fight the war?
Why do they always send the poor?
Why, do, they always send the poor
They only send the poor

[Batgirl]

11. It was actually OHIO

No surprise there, I guess.
Snipped from http://www.jamesmcmurtry.com

BLEEPED AND GAGGED in OHIO
Niki Dakota, Music Director at WYSO-FM in Dayton, OH, was suspended without pay for one week by the FCC for playing the unedited version of "We Can't Make it Here." More about the DJ and the station WYSO-FM: www.wyso.org/excursions.htm

[Batgirl]

12. Awesome lyrics on the System of a Down song!

Especially the refrain.
Thanks for posting those.
That's one band that isn't on my radar. Now I'll have to check them out.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

13. You might want to check this as well..... the video that goes with

this is just fantastic.

Nine Inch Nails, The Hand That Feeds.....

You're keeping in step
In the line
Got your chin held high and you feel just fine
Because you do
What you're told
But inside your heart it is black and it's hollow and it's cold

Just how deep do you believe?
Will you bite the hand that feeds?
Will you chew until it bleeds?
Can you get up off your knees?
Are you brave enough to see?
Do you want to change it?

What if this whole crusade's
A charade
And behind it all there's a price to be paid
For the blood
On which we dine
Justified in the name of the holy and the divine

Just how deep do you believe?
Will you bite the hand that feeds?
Will you chew until it bleeds?
Can you get up off your knees?
Are you brave enough to see?
Do you want to change it?

So naive
I keep holding on to what I want to believe
I can see
But I keep holding on and on and on and on

Will you bite the hand that feeds you?
Will you stay down on your knees? <8X>

[newswolf56]

14. Stood my hair up too: think I just heard the first truly radical anthem...

this country has produced since Joe Hill days. McMurtry's chord runs are pure Appalachian: as if they would awaken the restless spirits of Coal Creek and Swannanoa Tunnel and reach far beyond the mountains to resurrect the working-class outrage that followed the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. For me at least -- a big part of the reason the words and music raised my hair -- McMurtry's rhythms and choral passages summon half-formed visions of red-flagged marchers, as if in the streets of Petrograd but more likely in some American city of the near future. A new Ghost Dance, linking the yearnings of the present to the deeds of the past. Modern words and modern anger in an epic medium old and powerful as a Celtic lay of magic. Art as prophecy: perhaps the first genuine prelude to a true awakening...

Thank you so very much for posting this. I feel blessed to have heard it; I have already played the song a half-dozen times and still it raises the gooseflesh on my forearms.

[Berserker]

15. Thanks Batgirl

GREAT song and I think he has just got a new fan