The Big Green House

Thursday, February 27, 2003

 

...by just your being you

Let's turn off the snark-o-meter for a minute here. I'm actually gonna be semi-serious today, just to kinda try it on & see how it fits. I'll turn the sarcasm tags back on when I'm done.

If I were a better man, the kind of person I'd ideally want to be, I would be somewhere between Fred Rogers and Joe Strummer. From all accounts, both of them stood for what they believed in, putting it into practice in their daily lives. Both worked toward channeling anger and frustration into positive action - one advocated social change through music, the other counseled several generations of children that, while it's OK to feel angry, it's never OK to hurt others. Both believed in the responsibility of the individual, toward themselves and toward the greater community. And both dressed pretty well, too. I don't know exactly what they would have said to one another had they met, but I'd guess that Mr. Rogers would have some fairly interesting questions for Mr. Strummer.

"Although it almost instantly became codified as yet another badge of conformity, punk rock at its inception, and as curated by its most committed advocates, was about untethering the spirit of the individual from the yoke of fitting in, about rejecting whatever preordained role life handed you, and even for one snatched moment of amplified adrenalin-fueled inspiration took the singer, the song and the audience to a better place. Expressed in its purest form, punk was, and remains, an ethos of liberation."
-Keith Cameron

Clampdown
(Strummer/Jones)

What are we gonna do now?
Taking off his turban, they said, is this man a Jew?
'Cause they're working for the clampdown
They put up a poster saying we earn more than you!
When we're working for the clampdown
We will teach our twisted speech
To the young believers
We will train our blue-eyed men
To be young believers

The judge said five to ten-but I say double that again
I'm not working for the clampdown
No man born with a living soul
Can be working for the clampdown
Kick over the wall 'cause government's to fall
How can you refuse it?
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power
D'you know that you can use it?

The voices in your head are calling
Stop wasting your time, there's nothing coming
Only a fool would think someone could save you
The men at the factory are old and cunning
You don't owe nothing, so boy get runnin'
It's the best years of your life they want to steal

You grow up and you calm down
You're working for the clampdown
You start wearing the blue and brown
You're working for the clampdown
So you got someone to boss around
It makes you feel big now
You drift until you brutalize
You made your first kill now

In these days of evil presidentes
Working for the clampdown
But lately one or two has fully paid their due
For working for the clampdown
But ha! Gitalong! Gitalong!

And I've given away no secrets
Who's barmy now?


What Do You Do?
(Fred Rogers)

What do you do with the mad that you feel
When you feel so mad you could bite?
When the whole wide world seems oh, so wrong...
And nothing you do seems very right?

What do you do? Do you punch a bag?
Do you pound some clay or some dough?
Do you round up friends for a game of tag?
Or see how fast you go?

It's great to be able to stop
When you've planned a thing that's wrong,
And be able to do something else instead
And think this song:

I can stop when I want to
Can stop when I wish.
I can stop, stop, stop any time.
And what a good feeling to feel like this
And know that the feeling is really mine.
Know that there's something deep inside
That helps us become what we can.
For a girl can be someday a woman
And a boy can be someday a man.
bmarkey 2/27/2003 08:01:00 PM