Jan 192009
I think this song is fitting both to celebrate MLK Day and Tuesday’s coming historic Presidential Inauguration.
The Staples Singers, “Long Walk to D.C.”
What’s on your I Have a Dream playlist? What’s your parting song for W?
I think this song is fitting both to celebrate MLK Day and Tuesday’s coming historic Presidential Inauguration.
The Staples Singers, “Long Walk to D.C.”
What’s on your I Have a Dream playlist? What’s your parting song for W?
Man, I’ve always loved that song.
Here’s my 6 favorite “I Have a Dream” sort of songs:
1) This is My Country
2) Keep on Pushing
3) Move On Up
4) Get Together
5) What’s So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding
6) Long Walk to D.C.
7) Revolution (B side version)
It’s tough to write one of these things and have it taste as good as ice cream. They’re usually pretty bad (“Imagine”). The 7 I’ve listed are as solid as a rock.
E. Pluribus
Well done, Plurbie, for calling bullshit on “Imagine.” That song is lame.
I’d add another Curtis song to this MLK day list: “Choice of Colors.”
“Stand!” by Sly and the Family Stone needs to be on this MLK list as well.
Great choices, so far, although I’ll respectfully delete “Move On Up” from my playlist and replace it with Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power”.
I’d add A Change is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke.
Yeah, “Stand” is my #8. “Choice of Colors” is obviously well intended but never really worked for me as a song. “We’re Rolling On” has similar problems.
E. Pluribus
Here’s a song I find inspirational by an artist whose lyrics I often find distracting: “Heroes,” by Bowie. Knowing the backstory helps my enjoyment of the song, I’m sure, but I still got plenty from the lyrics and their delivery when I first heard the song in high school.
I will most respectfully delete “A Change Is Gonna Come” from my playlist. I know that’s supposed to be a highly inspiring, meaningful song, but I’ve never dug the tune. Shallow?
What’s the back story on Heroes?
And please stop deleting the best songs from the list. You’re now 2 for 2.
cdm, I’m only deleting songs from my *personal* playlist to keep things honest and make someone think twice before adding a great song that’s not really as inspirational as its meant to be, like The Rascals’ “People Got to Be Free” (which I love as a rockin’ dance tune but find kind of thin as a MESSAGE), or a song that we might regret loading on our I Have a Dream playlist, like one of those obvious U2 numbers. If they really move you, put them on the list. I will reserve the right to be a curmudgeon.
The backstory I’ve heard regarding “Heroes” is that it’s Bowie imagining two lovers separated by the Berlin Wall. I think he’s said that he witnessed one of the lovers on one side of the wall during his mystical Berlin period.
I’m a big fan of “Stand!” and the way it starts off as kind of a gentle prodding and builds up a head of steam, before ending somewhere else entirely. Also, I’ve always loved the “You’ve been sitting for much too long/there’s a permanent crease in your right and wrong” line. It’s a song deserving of its exclamation point.
Anyway, this topic reminds me that I need to get back to my “Why Didn’t The Doobie Brothers End Racism?” essay, in case The Doobies are inducted into the Foyer of Mediocrity.
Add Nina Simone’s “Why (The King Of Love Is Dead) and Coltrane’s “Alabama”, in which Coltrane was supposedly soloing in the cadence of Dr. King
Feh. “Heroes.” Toni Fisher’s “West of the Wall,” motherfuckers!
I replace “Move On Up.”
Farewell to the shrub: Kirsty MacColl’s “Free World.” With a side of LMNOP’s “Stranger’s Son,” just for the closing couplet.
I’m adding Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings version of “This Land Is Your Land” & Lee Dorsey’s version of “Yes We Can Can”
Gotta add “War/No More Troubles” by Bob Marley.
“Until the color of a man’s skin
Is of no more significance
Than the color of his eyes…”
If I don’t trust people with green eyes is Marley’s message a good thing?:)
By the way, I dug Aretha’s performance and Look today. Very regal!