It's A Hard Life Wherever You Go - Nanci Griffith
I am a backseat driver from America
They drive to the left on Falls Road
The man at the wheel's name is Seamus
We pass a child on the corner he knows
And Seamus says, "Now, what chance has that kid got?"
And I say from the back, "I don't know."
He says, "There's barbed wire at all of these exits . . .
And there ain't no place in Belfast for that kid to go."
(chorus)
It's a hard life
It's a hard life
It's a very hard life
It's a hard life wherever you go
If we poison our children with hatred
then, the hard life is all that they'll know
And there ain't no place in (Belfast) for these kids to go
(Chicago)
(This world)
A cafeteria line in Chicago
The fat man in front of me
Is calling black people trash to his children
he's the only trash here I see
And I'm thinking this man wears a white hood
in the night when his children should sleep
But, they slip to their window and they see him
And they think that white hood's all they need
(repeat chorus)
I was a child in the sixties
dreams could be held through TV
With Disney, and Cronkite, and Martin Luther
Oh, I believed, I believed . . . I BELIEVED
Now, I am the backseat driver from America
I am not at the wheel of control
I am guilty, I am war, . . . I am the root of all evil
Lord, and I can't drive on the left side of the road
(repeat chorus)
Does "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" count?
Oh god. I used that in a class last semester, and it took a LONG time for anyone to laugh.
Hi Meara. The song book has been printed. When the nastys with their crooked crosses come to town tomorrow they will be serenaded with the following eclectic collection:
Faithless – Mass Destruction
BALLAD FOR AMERICANS
Springtime for Hitler from Mel Brooks “The Producers”
Bob Marley -WAR
Elvis Costello – What’s so Funny About Peace Love and Understanding
Bob Marley – Get Up! Stand Up!
Kris Kristofersons Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down
Wild American
Generation Genocide
Your Racist Friend
Kazoo band rendition of theme from Hogan's heros
Nazi Punks Fuck Off
We suspect they won't last through the whole thing.
Hello. I don't usually hang out here, but I was wondering if anyone had read "Explorers of the New Century"? (It's the latest book by Magnus Mills.) Here's the
Salon
review.
It's a quick read. If you're going to read it, do
not
get spoiled. Slightly more than halfway through, stuff is revealed that radically changes one's view of what's going on....
A fun, if disturbing, read.
George RR Martin gets his 17th Hugo Nomination for A Feast for Crows.
Anybody know of any good books on the history of the Cold War? I'm specifically looking for stuff about the very beginning of it, like how we got from WWII to the Cold War, and the Rosenbergs and other stuff around that period, but I'm also interested in a more general history. (I just read Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feinman and Doctorow's Book of Daniel back-to-back, and my brain is kind of stuck in that "but how did we get from there to there?" space now.)
Now that you mention it, that does sound interesting.
Just off the top of my head... I think the Berlin Airlift is considered the start of the Cold War, or at least a major escalation. That was around 1948? Then the Korean war (1950-'53) resulted in big increases in US defense spending. The Soviet Union detonating their first atomic bomb was a major shock to the US too. (That was somewhere around 1949-'51, IIRC.)
Communists taking over China (1948?) was also (I think) part of the rise of the cold war mentality. US politicians played the "blame game" in trying to assign American responsibiltiy for "who lost China."
eta: Actually, US and British mistrust of the Soviet Union was increasing even before the end of WW-II, when the Soviet Union was our ally.
Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech was in 1945, IIRC.
