In somewhat of a response to Carrie's posting of the lyrics to "Pressure" a few weeks ago, I'm going to post some lyrics by Ani DiFranco that sum up a lot of what I have been feeling about the world lately. The tone of the song is playful, but serious, although not nearly as destructive as the lyrics might appear when typed out.
"Fuel"
Music and Lyrics by Ani DiFranco
Little Plastic Castle 1998
They were digging a new foundation in Manhattan,
And they discovered a slave cemetery there.
May their souls rest easy now that lynching is frowned upon.
We've moved on to the electric chair!
And I wonder, who's gonna be President?
Tweedle Dumb or Tweedle Dumber?
And who's gonna have the blockbuster box office this summer?
How 'bout we put up a wall between the houses and the highway,
And then you can go your way, and I can go my way?
Except all the radios agree with all the TVs,
And the magazines agree with all the radios.
And I keep hearing that SAME DAMN SONG everywhere I go!
Ha ha ha!
Maybe I should put a bucket over my head,
And a marshmallow in each ear,
And stumble around for another dumb, numb week
For another humdrum hit song to appear.
People used to make records,
As in a record
Of an event.
The event of people playing music in a room.
Now everything is cross-marketing,
It's about sunglasses and shoes
Or guns and drugs.
You choose.
We got it re-hashed.
We got it half-assed.
We're digging up all the graves and we're spitting on the past.
And we can choose between the colors
Of the lipsticks on the whores
Because we know the difference
Between the
Font of 20% MORE
And the
Font of teriyaki.
You tell me, how does it make you feel?
You tell me, what's real?
Am I headed for the same brick wall?
Is there anything I can do about anything at all?
Except go back to that corner in Manhattan,
And dig deeper, dig deeper this time.
Down beneath the impossible pain of our history
Beneath unknown bones, beneath the bedrock of the mystery,
Beneath the sewage system and the PATH train,
Beneath the cobblestones and the water mane,
Beneath the traffic of friendships and street deals,
Beneath the screeching of kamikaze cab wheels,
Beneath everything I can think of to think about!
Beneath it all, beneath all get-out!
Beneath the good
And the kind
And the stupid
And the cruel
There's a fire that's just waiting for fuel...
There's a fire just waiting for fuel
There's a fire just waiting, waiting...
Okay, so I left out a few lines about being an alcoholic because that doesn't really apply to me here, but I really wish that I and everyone else could "dig deeper." Try to value life and art and the environment, try to remember how we got in the mess we're in now, try to be productive instead of destructive. To quote someone else, "The opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation!" ("La Vie Boheme", Rent, Jonathan Larson, 1996)
Just my take on a week of gorgeous weather here in NYC! Hee hee! No, it just seems like every time we make a few strides forward, some idiots come along and push us all back again. Most of the news recently about the economy, and the war, and the environment, and almost everything has been bad. It's hard, but I have to hope we'll eventually start to make progress again. Hopefully, after the Presidential election this year!
2 comments:
I know that I am not the most politically involved individual or the most well-read about current events, but I saw this, and I was just utterly apalled! Where do we live? What is happening that people can't buy the quantity of rice that they want? This just isn't the America that I can be proud to be a citizen of. I know it's not a huge deal, but I feel it's representative of so much more...Here's the intro to the article:
The two biggest U.S. warehouse retail chains are limiting how much rice customers can buy because of what Sam's Club, a division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., called on Wednesday "recent supply and demand trends."
The move comes as U.S. rice futures hit a record high amid global food inflation, although one rice expert said the warehouse chains may be reacting less to any shortages than to stockpiling by restaurants and small stores.
It's because we might be about to face a major global food shortage involving rice and grains. That's why prices of all grains have been rising for the past few months and restaurants and grocers have been buying so much.
Rationing is the next step to prevent like, panic and starvation. You'll start to notice that pasta, flour, most wheat and grain products are going to be more expensive as this hits harder. We'll have to eat potatoes only!
It's very worrying to me, working at such a small Italian restaurant. If we have to raise our prices, and people stop eating there because it's too expensive and times are already hard, we might not make it!
What an awesome job our parents' generation is doing of running the world! J/K (sort of)
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