Power of Music
Travel Theme Song
There are some newly resonated songs that will stay with me forever because I heard them on the road:
“Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics
Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody’s looking for something
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused
I wanna know what’s inside you
(Whispering) Hold your head up, movin’ on
Keep your head up, movin’ on
Hold your head up, movin’ on
Keep your head up, movin’ on
Hold your head up, movin’ on
Keep your head up, movin’ on
Movin’ on!
Probably the most oft heard song heard in five years of world travel, especially in Africa, was
Get Up, Stand Up by Bob Marley
Preacherman, don’t tell me,
Heaven is under the earth.
I know you don’t know
What life is really worth.
It’s not all that glitters is gold;
‘Alf the story has never been told:
So now you see the light, eh!
Stand up for your rights. Come on!
Get up, stand up! (Jah, Jah!)
Stand up for your rights! (Oh-hoo!)
Get up, stand up! (Get up, stand up!)
Don’t give up the fight! (Life is your right!)
Get up, stand up! (So we can’t give up the fight!)
Stand up for your rights! (Lord, Lord!)
Get up, stand up! (Keep on struggling on!)
Don’t give up the fight! (Yeah!)
We sick an’ tired of-a your ism-skism game –
Dyin’ ‘n’ goin’ to heaven in-a Jesus’ name, Lord.
We know when we understand:
Almighty God is a living man.
You can fool some people sometimes,
But you can’t fool all the people all the time.
So now we see the light (What you gonna do?),
We gonna stand up for our rights! (Yeah, yeah, yeah!)
And then there is the title song “No Woman, No Cry,” also by Marley, that my sometime friend Francisco unfortunately often recalled in Oaxaca.
Crowded House, a New Zealand group, has a song called “The Weather With You” the lyrics of which goes this way: “Everywhere you go you always take the weather with you”…and then… “If you can’t change the world change yourself…” This music was played so much on the truck on it’s way from Nairobi to Capetown that it became the truck’s theme song.
A close second, “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen and long gone lead singer Freddie Mercury heard in Zanzibar in Stone Town…the town of his birth.
LaterThe Bohemian Rhapsody lifted us high again-Freddie Mercury singing in that glorious and sadly gone away voice at the Fish River Canyon Camp in South Africa!
I hopped a motorcycle taxi at the corner in Bangkok. “Where you from?” the cute young driver asked. “America,” I said. “America Pie” he sang to me all the way to my dentist appointment. “I used to work at cocktail bar,” he laughed, “and I learn all the words” I enjoyed the song but really hoped I wasn’t going to lose my knees as he dodged in and out the cars and other cyclists at terrifying speed.
Walking down a street in Rangoon Burma a young guy with a Sex Pistols T-shirt laughingly called out to me the title of Springsteen’s “Born In The USA!” Hey where you get that T-shirt I yelled back at him but of course he didn’t understand me.
Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven” reminds me of Krygzstan. While trekking I noticed that one of the young shepherds leading a pack horse had earbuds on. What are you listening to, I motioned. Led Zeppelin he said smiling broadly.
Couldn’t think of anything other than John Lennon’s “Imagine” while on the road in Viet Nam
BB King, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Billie Holiday, Robert Johnson and all those whose songs and sentiments were stolen by The Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton. No music is more restorative for me, especially when I am on the road..exhausted…than the blues. Makes me feel at home within myself. Real. I’ll never forget the feeling I had when I trudged into the bar at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club in Phnom Penh Cambodia after a month behind a motorcycle taxi driver in Viet Nam and heard Muddy Waters on the stereo.
In Cesky Krumlov, a medieval town in the mountains in southwest Czech Republic spent three days at a Czech jazz festival who played some great covers of the Beatles and BB King…the naturally conservative Czech people politely sitting…getting the hang of the Blues.
In the old city of Florence Italy, near the Duomo a small church was offering a concert with about 12 versions of Ave Maria sung by a young tenor. I thought I’d gone to heaven-for awhile anyway…balm for the soul.
Progessive Jazz
On Friday nights I could take a motorcycle taxi through the sois (side streets) to listen to a great blues band at Tokyo Joe’s near Sukhumvit in Bangkok. The lead singer and guitar player seemed American but he said he was Danish! The rest of the week features progressive jazz bands…which Thais generally find very uncomfortable to listen to…so it seems odd to see Thai band members wailing away on sax’s and guitars. Most of the patrons were farangs and I had a great conversation with a young French English-speaking couple who had been in the city almost a year putting together a visitor’s magazine. Another night here I sat with some Thai Air executives…told them I always flew China Air because it had good service and was cheaper…then we laughed
Walked into the Night Market in Bangkok and on the stage was a band playing a great cover of the Eagles’ “Hotel California.” the crowd singing along joyously in English
In Vientiane Laos a terrific Thai band impressed the locals with covers of Rod Stewart, Eagles and Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” Was impressed myself. Great fun listening and singing along to rock after months of insipid Asian pop
Jack Johnson, heard all over southeast Asia, especially Thailand
the best”“Where Did All The Good People Go?”
Antonio Aguilar’s version of “Cancion Mixteca”
With nearly every village giving up men and women to work as migrants in the far north, this much beloved ranchero style song of Oaxaca touches the hearts of all. The singer is far from the ground where he has been born! Immense nostalgia invades his thought. He misses the land of the sun, green by now. He lives far away without light, without love. Alone and sad like the leaf in the wind, he wants to cry, wants to die from such feeling
Control Machete, popular Mexican rock band doubled me up in Oaxaca with their lyrics in the song “Frijolero” written by Molotov. My Spanish speaking Mexican-American friends will enjoy this:
Yo ya estoy hasta la madre
de que me pongan sombrero
escucha entonces cuando digo
no me llames frijolero
Y aunque exista algun respeto
no metamos las narices
por que inflamos la moneda
haciendo guerra a otros paises
te pagamos con petróleo
o intereses nuestra deuda
mientras tanto no sabemos
quien se queda con la feria
Aunque nos hagan la fama
de que somos vendedores
de la droga que sembramos
ustedes son consumidores
English:
I’m sick and tired
of them making a fool of me
listen now when I tell you
don’t call me “frijolero”
and though there’s some respect
and we don’t get in your faces
we never inflate currency
making war on other countries
we pay you our debt
with oil and interest
but we don’t know who
walks off with all the money
although they say we are infamous
for being the sellers
of the drugs we grow
you all are the consumers
Podras imaginarte desde afuera
ser un mexicano cruzando la frontera
pensando en tu familia mientras que pasas
dejando todo lo que tu conoces atras
Si tuvieras tu que esquivar las balas?
De unos cuantos gringos rancheros?
Les seguiras diciendo good for nothing wetback?
Si tuvieras tu que empezar de cero?
English:
can you imagine yourself
as a Mexican while you cross the border
thinking of your family while you go over
leaving all you know behind
what if you had to dodge bullets
of a bunch of gringo ranchers
would you keep calling them “good for nothing wetback?”
if you had to start from scratch?
Don’t call me gringo, you fucking beaner
Stay on your side of that godamn river
Don’t call me gringo you beaner
No me digas beaner Mr. Puñetero
Te sacare un susto por racista y culero
No me llames frijolero pinche gringo puñetero
(chingao¡¡)
English:
don’t call me beaner, Mr Bastard
i’ll call you on being a racist and “culero”(”asshole”)
Don’t call me “frijolero”, fucking gringo bastard!
Now I wish I had a dime for every single time
I’ve gotten stared down for being in the wrong side of town
And a rich man I’d be if I had that kind of chips
Lately I wanna smack the mouth of these racists.
Now why don’t you look down to
Where your feet is planted
That U.S soil that makes you take shit for granted
If not for Santa Anna, just to let you know
That where your feet a planted would be Mexico
Correcto!
Don’t call me gringo, you fucking beaner
Stay on your side of that godamn river
Don’t call me gringo you beaner
No me digas beaner Mr. Puñetero
Te sacare un susto por racista y culero
No me llames frijolero pinche gringo (pinche gringo que?) puñetero
Casas De Carton (Cardboard Houses)
Qué triste se oye la lluvia en los techos de cartón
qué triste vive mi gente en las casas de cartón
Viene bajando el obrero casi arrastrando sus pasos
por el peso del sufrir,
mira que mucho ha sufrido, mira que pesa el sufrir
Arriba deja la mujer preñada
abajo está la ciudad y se pierde en su maraña
hoy es lo mismo que ayer, es un mundo sin mañana
Qué triste se oye la lluvia en los techos de cartón
qué triste vive mi gente en las casas de cartón
Niños color de mi tierra, con sus mismas cicatrices
millonarios de lombrices, y por eso
qué triste viven los niños en las casas de cartón
qué alegres viven los perros en casa del explotador
Usted no lo va a creer pero hay escuelas de perros
y les dan educación pa’ que no muerdan los diarios
pero el patrón hace años, muchos años
que está mordiendo al obrero
Qué triste se oye la lluvia en los techos de cartón
qué lejos pasa la esperanza en las casas de cartón
Lila Downs voice gives me the shivers in songs like “Cielo Rojo” and “Sandunga”. She was born and raised in Huayapam Oaxaca on the way out to Bardo and Mica’s house.
Marco Antonio Solis sings some of the most romantic music ever. Seeing him on a YouTube video I said to my next door neighbor…boy, I could go for him…she said yeah you and about 3 million Mexican women!
iPod Tunes for those long bus and train rides
On the streets of southeast Asia you can buy knock-offs of several volumns of “Buddah Bar”…compilations of electronic global music like Moby
and that thumpy trance and house music that kept us awake all night on Bali during the Full Moon party next door.
Bob Dylan for his incredibly prophetic well-phrased lyrics in songs like “With God On Our Side” “Desolation Row” “Eve Of Destruction” But will always think of Dylan’s stinginess because of Stan’s (Oaxaca expat) stories about living in the same crappy hippy house in Minneapolis in the 60’s.
“With God On Our Side”
Oh my name it is nothin’
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I’s taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.
Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.
Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I’s made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.
Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don’t count the dead
When God’s on your side.
When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.
I’ve learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It’s them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.
But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we’re forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God’s on your side.
In a many dark hour
I’ve been thinkin’ about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can’t think for you
You’ll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.
So now as I’m leavin’
I’m weary as Hell
The confusion I’m feelin’
Ain’t no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God’s on our side
He’ll stop the next war.
and Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone”
You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain’t no good
You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a siamese cat
Aint it hard when you discover that
He really wasn’t where its at
After he took from you everything he could steal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
Dylan’s new album “Modern Times” with songs like “Thunder On The Mountain,” “Spirit On The Water,” is some of the best writing he’s done in years.
Neil Young and “Keep On Rockin In The Free World.” always made me realize how accidental it was to be born where I was.
Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” set me afire when I was a teenager.
Cat Power for her raw sulky voice and craggy guitar
Tom Waits“Anywhere I Lay My Head” (“I call my home”)
Cowboy Junkies, a wholesome Canadian singer and her four brothers for their great covers. The name of the band comes from their anti-drug work.
Eva Cassidy, more popular in death than when she was alive, at once bluesy, heart-felt and soothingly sensuous
John Mayer “Dreaming With A Broken Heart”
and “The Heart Of Life”
Eric Clapton especially “Layla”
Janis Joplin, “Try Just A Little Bit Harder” “Kosmic Blues” and “Take Another Little Piece of My Heart” Creedance Clearwater Revival, “As Long As I See The Light,” Doors “Strange Days,” “Riders On The Storm,” “People Are Strange,” and of course the now-famous “Let It Roll,” Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” Beatles “Revolution,” Bob Segar’sOld Time Rock N Roll,” and “Going To Katmandu,” Springsteen’s “Born To Run” “Born In The USA” and “Thunder Road,” Country Joe McDonald’s “Viet Nam” Red Hot Chili Peppers “Road Trippin” Roger Waters’ “Lost Boys” U2’s “One” and “Light My Way” Aerosmith “Sweet Emotion” Led Zeppelin “Houses Of The Holy” Queen “We Will Rock You”
Rolling Stones, “Can’t Always Get What You Want” and “Satisfaction” Keith Richards says that you don’t do anything if there’s not joy in it..a day is a day and each one is going bye-bye, and you only have so many more in front of you. Friendship is probably one of the most important things in life. Apart from your immediate family, it’s about friends…the ability to make friends, the ability to forgive friends. And their ability to forgive you. It’s just the ability to enjoy other people’s company, really. Then you’ve got it all, man. The rest of it’s gravy.
The Walkmen’s “Thinking Of A Dream” and “New Year’s Eve” and Audioslave’s Morello the lead guitarist who is now playing with the Night Watchmen recently said: “There’s something akin to grace in the combination of music and meaning. Tonight I’m going to go out there and play every song like it’s the last song I’m ever going to play and try to see if it feels like grace.” Fierce…revolutionary… prophetic mirrors of ourselves in America. Patti Smith (“Horses”) said once that “Rock and Roll is more than music. It is consciousness.”
Anything by Leonard Cohen the Master especially “Hallelujah”
I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty
in the moonlight
overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne,
she cut your hair (reference to Samson in the Bible?)
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Maybe I’ve been here before
I know this room, I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah
There was a time you’d let me know
What’s real and going on below
But now you never show it to me do you?
Remember when I moved in you?
The holy dark was moving too
And every breath we drew was hallelujah
Maybe there’s a God above
And all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who’s seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah
And “I’m Your Man” and all the others that move me
like no other song-writing can
John Lennon and Paul McCartney, also Masters
sing a sweet one.
“When I’m 64”
When I get old, and losing my hair, many years from now,
Will you still be sending me a Valentine,birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
If I’d been out ’till quarter to three,would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I’m sixty-four?
You’ll be older, too. Aaah, and if you say the word, I could stay with you.
I could be handy, mending a fuse, when your lights have gone.
You can knit a sweater by the fireside, sunday mornings, go for a ride.
Doing the garden, digging the weeds, who could ask for more?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty four?
Every summer we can rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight if it’s not too dear.
We shall scrimp and save.
Ah, grandchildren on your knee, Vera, Chuck, and Dave.
Send me a postcard, drop me a line stating point of view.
Indicate precisely what you mean to say, yours sincerely wasting away.
Give me your answer, fill in a form, mine forever more.
Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty four?
Van Morrison “Hymns To The Silence” and “The Healing Game.”
Townes Van Zandt for songs like “If I Needed You” (would you come to me?)
Michael Franti And Spearhead Acid jazz fusion song “Oh My God.”
(chorus)
Oh my, oh my God
out here mama they got us livin’ suicide
singin’ oh my, oh my God
out here mama they got us livin’ genocide
…
Well politicians got lipstick on the collar
the whole media started to holler
but I don’t give a fuck who they screwin’ in private
I wanna know who they screwin’ in public
robbin’, cheatin’, stealin’
…
false advertising sayin’ “Halls of Justice”
you tellin’ the youth don’t be so violent
then you drop bombs on every single continent…
Carlos Santana, “Black Magic Woman” and “Migra”
Zuccero’s Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime”
Change your heart, look around you
Change your heart, it will astound you
I need your loving like the sunshine
And everybody’s gotta learn sometime
Everybody’s gotta learn sometime
Everybody’s gotta learn sometime
John Coltrane’s “Meditations” and “A Love Supreme”
Lou Reed “Just A Perfect Day”
Just a perfect day
Drink sangria in the park
And then later, when it gets dark, we’ll go home
Just a perfect day
Feed animals in the zoo
Then later a movie too, and then home
Oh it’s such a perfect day
I’m glad I spent it with you
Oh such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging
Just a perfect day
Problems all left alone
Weekenders on our own
It’s such fun
Just a perfect day
You make me forget myself
I thought I was someone else
Someone good
You’re going to reap just what you sow
You’re going to reap just what you sow
You’re going to reap just what you sow
You’re going to reap just what you sow
And then there’s “A Good Heart Is Hard To Find” by Feargal Sharkeydiscovered while in Queretaro, Mexico
A GOOD HEART
I hear a lot of stories
I suppose they could be true
All about love and what it can do to you
Highest risk of striking out
The risk of getting hurt
And still, I have so much to learn
I know, ’cause I think about it all the time
I know, that real love has quite a price
And a good heart, these days, is hard to find (a good heart)
True love, the lasting kind
A good heart, these days, is hard to find
So please be gentle with this heart of mine
My expectations may be high
I blamed it on my youth
Soon enough, I’ll learned the painful truth
I’ll face it like a fighter
Then boast of how I’ve grown
Anything is better than being alone
I know, ’cause I learn a little every day
I know, ’cause I listen when the experts say
That a good heart, these days, is hard to find (a good heart)
True love, the lasting kind
A good heart, these days, is hard to find
So please be gentle with this heart of mine
As I look back on all my childhood dreams
My ideas of love weren’t
As foolish as they seemed
If I don’t start looking now
I’ll be left behind
And a good heart these days, it’s hard to find
I know, it’s a dream I’m willing to defend
I know, it will all be worth it in the end
And a good heart, these days, is hard to find (a good heart)
True love, the lasting kind
A good heart, these days, is hard to find
So please be gentle with this heart of mine
And a good heart, these days, is hard to find (a good heart)
True love, the lasting kind
A good heart, these days, is hard to find
So please be gentle with this, with this heart of mine
“Across The Universe”… A soundtrack that will always remind me of my visit to Beijing in February 2008 to see my son Josh and his wife Amy because it was there that they played the DVD for me. Could finally plunge the depths and brilliance of these Beatles songs that amazed me because they were written by these boys when they were so young.
And finally:
“Fragile” Sting
If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow’s rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime’s argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are
On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are
On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are
How fragile we are how fragile we are
Zoe
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