by John Lennon
You say you want a revolution
Well, you know, we all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know, we all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be alright
You say you got a real solution
Well, you know, we'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know, we're all doing what we can
But when you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is, brother, you have to wait
Don't you know it's gonna be alright
You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know, we all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know, you better free you mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow
Don't you know it's gonna be alright
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Revolution
Posted by Steven A Mitchell 0 comments
Labels: change, disharmony, rebellion
Saturday, March 12, 2011
I Want to Tell You
by George Harrison
I want to tell you
My head is filled with things to say
When you're here
All those words, they seem to slip away
When I get near you
The games begin to drag me down
It's all right
I'll make you maybe next time around
But if I seem to act unkind
It's only me, it's not my mind
That is confusing things
I want to tell you
I feel hung up, and I don't know why
I don't mind
I could wait forever, I've got time
Sometimes I wish I knew you well
Then I could speak my mind and tell you
Maybe you'd understand
Posted by Steven A Mitchell 0 comments
Labels: anxiety, frustration, Harrison, longing
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Ash Wednesday (Pt. III)
[Part II here]
by T.S. Eliot
At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitul face of hope and of despair.
At the second turning of the second stair
I left them twisting, turning below;
There were no more faces and the stair was dark,
Damp, jagged, like an old man's mouth drivelling, beyond repair,
Or the toothed gullet of an aged shark.
At the first turning of the third stair
Was a slotted window bellied like the figs's fruit
And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene
The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green
Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.
Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,
Lilac and brown hair;
Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind over the third stair,
Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair
Climbing the third stair.
Lord, I am not worthy
Lord, I am not worthy
but speak the word only.
[Pt. IV here]
Friday, March 4, 2011
The Waste Land (Pt. III)
[Pt. II Here]
by T.S. Eliot
III. The Fire Sermon
The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother's wreck
And on the king my father's death before him.
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat's foot only, year to year.
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter
They wash their feet in soda water
Et, O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!
Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc'd.
Tereu
Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
'Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over.'
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.
'This music crept by me upon the waters'
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.
The river sweats
Oil and tar
The barges drift
With the turning tide
Red sails
Wide
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
The barges wash
Drifting logs
Down Greenwich reach
Past the Isle of Dogs.
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala
Elizabeth and Leicester
Beating oars
The stern was formed
A gilded shell
Red and gold
The brisk swell
Rippled both shores
Southwest wind
Carried down stream
The peal of bells
White towers
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala
'Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.'
'My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised 'a new start'.
I made no comment. What should I resent?'
'On Margate Sands.
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.'
la la
To Carthage then I came
Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest
burning
[Pt. IV Here]
Posted by Steven A Mitchell 0 comments
Labels: anxiety, change, death, disharmony, Eliot, loss, poetry, Waste Land
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
I Think I Love You
by Tony Romeo
I'm sleeping
And right in the middle of a good dream
When all at once I wake up
From something that keeps knocking at my brain
Before I go insane
I hold my pillow to my head
And spring up in my bed
Screaming out the words I dread
'I think I love you!'
This morning
I woke up with this feeling
I didn't know how to deal with
And so I just decided to myself
I'd hide it to myself
And never talk about it
And did not go and shout it
When you walked into the room
'I think I love you!'
I think I love you
So what am I so afraid of?
I'm afraid that I'm not sure of
A love there is no cure for
I think I love you
Isn't that what life is made of?
Though it worries me to say
That I've never felt this way
I don't know what I'm up against
I don't know what it's all about
I got so much to think about
Believe me
You really don't have to worry
I only want to make you happy
And if you say, 'Hey, go away,' I will
But I think better still
I'd better stay around and love you
Do you think I have a case?
Let me ask you to your face
Do you think you love me?
Posted by Steven A Mitchell 0 comments
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Rock and Roll
by Lou Reed
Jenny said when she was just 5 years old
There was nothing happening at all
Every time she puts on the radio
There was nothing going down at all
Then one fine morning, she puts on a New York station
You know, she don't believe what she heard at all
She started shaking to that fine, fine music
You know, her life was saved by rock and roll
Despite all the amputations
You know, you could just go out
And dance to the rock and roll station
It was all right
Jenny said when she was just about 5 years old
'You know, my parents are gonna be the death of us all
'Two TV sets and two Cadillac cars
'Well, you know, ain't gonna help me at all'
Then one fine morning, she turns on a New York station
She doesn't believe what she hears at all
She started dancing to that fine, fine music
You know, her life was saved by rock and roll
Despite all the computations
You could just change it
To that rock and roll station
And baby, it was all right
Posted by Steven A Mitchell 0 comments
Saturday, February 19, 2011
The Sands of Iwo Jima
by Patterson Hood
George A. was at the movies in December '41
They announced it in the lobby what had just gone on
He drove up from Birmingham back to the family's farm
Thought he'd get him a deferment, there was much work to be done
He was a family man, even in those days
But Uncle Sam decided he was needed anyway
In the South Pacific over half a world away
He believed in God and Country, things was just that way
When I was just a kid, I spent every weekend
On the farm that he grew up on, so I guess so did I
And we'd stay up watching movies on the black-and-white TV
We watched The Sands of Iwo Jima starring John Wayne
Every year in June, George A. goes to a reunion
Of the men that he served with, and their wives and kids and grandkids
My great-uncle used to take me, and I'd watch them recollect
About some things I could not comprehend
And I thought about that movie, asked if it was that way
He just shook his head and smiled at me in such a loving way
As he thought about some friends he will never see again
He said, 'I never saw John Wayne on the sands of Iwo Jima'
Most of those men are gone now, but he goes still every year
And George A.'s still doing fine, especially for his years
He's still living on that homestead in the house that he was born in
And I sure wish I could go see him today
He never drove a new car, though he could easily afford it
He'd just buy one for the family, take whatever no one wanted
He said a shiny car didn't mean much after all the things he'd seen
George A. never saw John Wayne on the sands of Iwo Jima
Posted by Steven A Mitchell 0 comments
Labels: Americana, change, contentment, death, Drive-By Truckers, history, life, loss, narrative, war