Multisyllabic Vocabulary
Feb 4, 2007 Rock and Roll
Friday, February 14, 1964. I walked on to a makeshift stage at a country church south west of Longmont Colorado with a Harmony guitar in hand, and five Beatles songs in my head. Five days earlier, on Sunday night, Ed Sullivan had introduced the Fab Four. Monday morning, I bought the guitar and a small amplifier, the down payment was my life savings at the time, from Dick Bachman at Bachman Music in Longmont. I learned the songs and had my first ‘gig’ on Friday. Since then, I’ve picked, plucked, pranced, and piano pounded in a few hundred bars, taverns and nightclubs throughout the western us.
Holiday Inn Lounges… done ‘em… pool halls with a crappy stage in the corner… yup… ski resorts, golf resorts, country clubs, monster bars with country on the main floor and rock and roll in the basement.
Rock and roll, blues, protest rock, folk songs, hard rock… punk rock, new wave, metal and mosh… Zep and Zombies, Zappa and Zevon… Berry and Blondie, Beach Boys and… well duh… Beatles… Donovan and Dylan, the Knack and Greg Kihn… Sid Vicious and Stephen Stills…
Since the seventies, seems to be one song title gets yelled in every one of those places…
One thing makes me really glad about being an old fart… I can play what I want…
I’m doing sixties now for a lot of reasons, but in the middle of the gig I played last night, one of those reasons really came to mind.
Ya see, I remember Rosa Parks, and George Wallace, and Birmingham, and Medgar Evers, and Martin Luther King… Diner sit-ins, and fire hoses, and night sticks, and the bodies of three young men…
From hundreds of stages, I’ve watched, observed and listened… heard an overly large population of people whose multisyllabic vocabulary is pretty freakin’ limited. 80% of it in half a dozen words…
n——, whiskey, redneck, pickup, she-it, and freebird…
Ok, Free Bird is really two ONE SYLLABLE WORDS, but that’s not the way you hear it when the Jack and Coke forces it from somebody’s mouth… loudly…
I guess maybe I play some southern rock… Southern Cross, and of course Southern Man… sorry, Sweet Home Alabama isn’t on the list… neither is Free Bird…
Why celebrate somebody whose life seems to be depositing samples of his gene pool everywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line without any concept of personal responsibility…
Oh, well… I guess you can shout it out all you want… odds are pretty good you won’t hear it from me…
Quack!
Total – Chicago 1968
Nov 7, 2006 Politicians / Politics, Rock and Roll
What’ll you tell the people, Andrea
When you come back from Chicago
What’ll you tell the people, Andrea
When you come back in a shroud
Revelation in your mind
Degradation you can find
in your mind
CHORUS:
Police and politics
Hassles arise
Police and politics
and people die
The Gestapo has risen again
the SS troops and Mayor Daly’s friends
beat my friends
CHORUS
INTERLUDE
Policeman’s club
is covered with blood
the cameraman falls
but his picture is taken
Revelation in your mind
Degradation you can find
in your mind
CHORUS
My friend died today
What’ll you tell the people, Andrea
When you come back from Chicago
What’ll you tell the people, Andrea
When you come back in a shroud
Copyright Ron Lynch Chalice 1968, 1986, 2004 All Rights Reserved.
Vietnam
Sep 1, 2006 Blues, Folk / Indigenous, Other Music Styles, Rock and Roll, War
There are hundreds… here are a few…
Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag — Country Joe and the Fish
War — Bruce Springsteen
Where Have All the Flowers Gone — Pete Seeger
Universal Soldier — Donovan
The Ballad of the Green Berets — SSgt Barry Sadler
The Eve of Destruction — Barry McGuire
I could work on this list alone for weeks…
