What About Us?

Pink has been steadfast in her support of forgotten youth. This anthem thumps to that message and with the promise that those who are forgotten aren’t content on the sidelines.

Sticks and stones, they may break these bones
But then I’ll be ready, are you ready?
It’s the start of us, waking up, come on
Are you ready? I’ll be ready

The Last Resort

Here’s live, straightforward mourning of manifest destiny in all its ugliness, brought to you by The Eagles.

Who will provide the grand design, what is yours and what is mine?
‘Cause there is no more new frontier, we have got to make it here.
We satisfy our endless needs and justify our bloody deeds
In the name of destiny and in the name of God.

Shower thoughts

Grizzled…

Two “z”s?

Two states of being:

One: Rubs… Need a shave

Two: Mirrored… Rubs… Guess I did shave

Side thought: I part my hair so you don’t have to.

Bang! Bang!

Le Tigre rackets (fair warning: rough language) through this raw protest tune, included in an EP titled From the Desk of Mr. Lady, released in 2001, after the shooting of Amadou Diallo, well prior to the mess we’re in now but still careeningly relevant.

Wrong fucking time, wrong fucking place
There is no fucking way, this is not about race
Who’s gonna call 9-1-1
When they can’t tell a wallet from a motherfucking gun?

S.O.S. (Mother Nature)

Will.I.Am flows in a tune highlighting climate changes and warning of the consequences.

Corruption and bullshit politics
The planet’s gonna die cause of bullshit politics
It’s hotter in the winter, even hotter in the summer
And ain’t nobody coming to the rescue to help the [world].

Seven Last Words of the Unarmed

More than 100 Black men have been murdered in the last decade, killed by police or by authority figures.
Seven of them are the subject of this seven-movement choral work by Atlanta-based composer Joel Thompson. The piece was premiered by the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club under the direction of Dr. Eugene Rogers, associate director of choirs and professor of conducting at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance.
Here, it is performed by the Tallahassee Symphony

Here is a performance by the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club..

The pieces focus on seven whose last words align with the text structure of Joseph Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ.

I “Why do you have your guns out?” – Kenneth Chamberlain, 66
II “What are you following me for?” – Trayvon Martin, 17
III “Mom, I’m going to college.” – Amadou Diallo, 23
IV “I don’t have a gun. Stop shooting.” – Michael Brown, 18
V “You shot me! You shot me!” – Oscar Grant, 22
VI “It’s not real.” – John Crawford, 22
VII “I can’t breathe.” – Eric Garner, 43

For the full treatment, access https://sevenlastwords.org.

My Father in Nagasaki

A number of performances of My Father in Nagasaki (from America at War) (made available via YouTube) follow. The piece is a remarkable jazz number, composed by Joel Harrison in memory of his father’s entry into Nagasaki after the bomb. He was one of the first two Americans to see the results, according to the documentation.

One performance is by jazz orchestra conducted by Joel Harrison.

Here’s a link to the Sunnyside Communications recording.

And, here’s a link to the Facebook video in the Sunnyside Communications studio.

Liner notes from the album (Thanks to greenleft.org.au):
The United States has been in the midst of a foreign military engagement nearly every year since composer Joel Harrison’s birth in 1957.
This endless state of war has had lasting impacts on the country’s wellbeing, and far reaching repercussions on generations of soldiers and their families.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute showed total world military spending rose to US$1.9 trillion ($2.9 trillion) in 2019, an increase of 3.6% from 2018 and the largest annual growth in spending since 2010. (May 4 greenleft.org.au)

Black Like Me

It’s hard enough to be Black in the U.S. Now try to be Black in country music. Mickey Guyton gives us a look at that in this ballad.

And if you think we live in the land of the free,
You should try to be, oh, black like me.
Oh, and some day we’ll all be free.
And I’m proud to be, oh, black like me.

The Three Rs

Its a simple tune, with a great message. Thanks, Jack Johnson.

We’ve got to learn to
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle