Bruce Cockburn Sings “The Trouble with Normal”

Listen to this track by one-time mystic folkie turned world traveling political songwriter Bruce Cockburn. It’s “The Trouble with Normal”, the title track to his 1983 album. With the prompting and aid of several NGOs just before this record came out, Bruce Cockburn found himself packing a bag and getting on planes so he could see worlds that not many North American citizens got to see; those regions which are violently impacted by policies mandated by corporations and governments at home.

By this time, Cockburn was also expanding his sound by incorporating new wave, jazz fusion, art rock, reggae, and world music to his already sturdy folk-rock sound. Cockburn shifted his sound in other ways. He took on a new approach to production and arrangements that present his new material as a united front with his band rather than focusing on his detailed guitar work. This period kicked off a new phase for Cockburn as a songwriter, too. He began to supplant the spiritual abstracts evidenced in his earlier material in favour of more earthbound and confrontational subject matter that has him examining global trends and events with a critical eye.

In this respect and in others, The Trouble with Normal album was a template and first entry in a trilogy of records that now includes Stealing Fire (1984) and World of Wonders (1986). These releases share similar thematic emphases and a sonic palette between them. The songs serve as travelogues to some of the world’s most troubled locales and provide details as to why they are so troubled. At the same time, Cockburn’s material presents affectionate portraits of the people who live in those regions and who get on with their work and lives and families despite everything.

This title track from The Trouble With Normal is the record’s thesis statement, highlighting some of the underhanded tactics in campaigns of economic imperialism by the U.S in Central America and other regions. But it also includes references to workers’ rights in North America, with strikes for higher wages met by scab labour and mass firings to keep working people desperate and in their place. Most importantly of all, it touches on the attitudes of the average person in the street who often seems frustratingly disconnected from the issues and their social implications.

Callous men in business costume speak computerese
Play pinball with the Third World trying to keep it on its knees
Their single crop starvation plans put sugar in your tea
And the local Third World’s kept on reservations you don’t see
“It’ll all go back to normal if we put our nation first”
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse …

~ “The Trouble with Normal” by Bruce Cockburn

The central function that keeps the machine well-oiled and running is these attitudes of regular citizens. It’s our acceptance of bad faith practices and the denial of the grievous costs paid by others that justifies and perpetuates a slowly worsening status quo. In this, Cockburn presents his main takeaway. The “centrist” view on global economics, government policy, the public good, and what is perceived to be normal and stable is not a fixed value and never has been. In fact, being in the so-called center during times of grave injustice is such a slippery position that it barely registers as a position at all.

When a planet lurches to the right as ideologies engage, the “center” gets pulled right along with it. We’ve certainly seen this phenomenon play out this year, and to disastrous effect. We’ve seen what can happen when movements like this are met without resistance and are greeted with concessions instead, seemingly ignorant of history. Examining how this plays out goes beyond misplaced senses of balance and “both-sidesing” the issues at hand.

Defining what normal means demands context. It relies on a keen sense of discernment from every citizen. It demands a universal dedication to truth. We must decide on what normal or acceptable are guided by how our society can and should benefit as many people as possible, wherever they live. Social stability and people’s lives depend on it.

The issues “The Trouble with Normal” raises haven’t changed very much today, even when most of what it comments on seems like old news by now. We know that corporations and governments do dirty deals to get things done. We know that happens at the cost of human lives. By now, this is what normal feels like. In this, the trends, movements, practices, and patterns this song warned us about over forty years ago have come to their full fruition.

This is what makes this song so impactful today; it’s still so infuriatingly relevant. One might call “The Trouble with Normal” downright prescient if today’s fascism and authoritarian structures hadn’t been so effectively modelled in the 1980s. This grinding devolution of the democratic dream took decades to unfold. But it felt normal to so many people the whole way along. Pretty soon, we became the little dog in the burning room declaring “this is fine“. Maybe we’ve always been that little dog.

As dense and politically incendiary as the lyrics are, they are as compelling as anything Cockburn wrote about spirituality and connections between the divine and the beauty found in the natural world. In fact, the anger in this song stems from his personal devotion to the sacred and to the central Christian tenet of “love thy neighbour as thyself”. Among other things, this is what made so much of what Cockburn writes about here particularly striking, given that a planet lurching to the right certainly included the increasingly enriched Christian Right – a trend that stands today more than ever.

Because Cockburn was so deliberate in personally experiencing how the tools of oppression really work on a global scale before writing about it, “The Trouble with Normal” escapes being a leftist political tract. Instead, it’s a set of firsthand observations in reaction to the documented practices of multinational business interests, governments, and their various agencies in exploited regions in the world. It’s a comment on how fear and insecurity can shape our perceptions domestically, too, and how that makes us prone to manipulation.

Yet in its anger, there’s also a sense of resolve, too. Whatever normal is, it’s our lot to work out what it means and what it doesn’t together in good faith with boldness as goalposts continue to shift.

Bruce Cockburn is an active songwriter and performer today. You can visit brucecockburn.com to learn more about his history, extensive discography, and upcoming shows.

Cockburn recorded an alternate version of “The Trouble with Normal” which appears on 1987’s Waiting for a Miracle compilation record. You can listen to that version right here.

To get a sense of Bruce Cockburn as a live act when this tune and others from its namesake album were brand new, check out the full Bruce Cockburn concert film Rumours of Glory. It was filmed in late 1981 and released the following year. The film features many of his jazz-rock and ensemble-oriented songs, plus a couple re-imagined gems from his early career.

Finally, check out this list of 20 Great Bruce Cockburn Songs, also by your humble host.

Enjoy!

#80sMusic #BruceCockburn #politicalMusic #PoliticalSongs #singerSongwriters

I've found a recording of the 1981 Fine Gael song.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2332665196823779

#FineGael #PoliticalSongs

Solange Sings “Cranes in the Sky”

Listen to this track by Houstonian progressive R&B singer, songwriter, and producer Solange Knowles, better known simply as Solange. It’s “Cranes in the Sky” a hit single from her acclaimed 2016 record A Seat at the Table, her third album. The song was a Grammy-winner, garnering Solange a Best R&B Performance as well as winning a spot on Rolling Stone‘s ever-evolving Best 500 Songs of All Time list. It also scored a big number seven on their Best Songs of 2016 list along with many other appearances on end-of-year wrap-ups across several publications. This is not to mention its respectable chart placements all over the world.

As a whole, A Seat at the Table found Solange leveling up as an artist, evolving her established pop approach into a more ambitious and sonically expansive sound. Her efforts paid off, representing her first number one record on the Billboard 200 in the U.S. as well as her first record to chart internationally. On the surface, this might give its title a meaningful angle. But that phrase covers a gamut of themes on the record that have very little to do with careerism, one of those being very specifically concerned with a Black woman’s role within mainstream social and political structures. For more on that, be sure to read this piece by journalist and music writer Britt Julious.

In the meantime, “Cranes in the Sky” stands out among the other songs on the album in part because, unlike other songs, it was not written specifically for the album. It percolated over period of nearly a decade, written in its initial forms after the break-up of Solange’s first marriage in 2008, carrying all of the pain of that experience. Yet the song contains other and more diverse themes that go beyond the unique experiences of its author.

“Cranes in the Sky” began as a collaboration with Raphael Saadiq; a record producer and multi-instrumentalist with an impressive history in working with acts like Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige, and many other musical luminaries. Solange listened to the musical treatments that Saadiq provided to her via CD, serving as background music as she wrote the lyrics and melody. When it came time to finish work on A Seat at the Table, Solange revisited this older song and also her collaboration with Saadiq whom she brought on as a co-producer on the song and on others that appeared on the new album.

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The result is a serene and atmospheric mélange of textures in sympathy with Solange’s languid vocal at its center, the production swaddling the whole concoction in a warm and unhurried envelope of sound. Stylistically, the song touches on neo-soul, downtempo, and film music, with layered call and response backing vocals that suggest a collectivized Greek chorus of ancient tragedy transplanted into the modern day.

Sonically, “Cranes in the Sky” is as contented as it’s possible to be. Thematically, it writhes with tension. This contrast is the engine to how it delivers a potent message about the human capacity for indulging in distractions and denial as one struggles with a disquieted spirit. It touches on the common experience of troublesome voices of the mind and the restless feelings of the heart that indicate that all is not well, despite well-worn coping mechanisms and pretenses.

Sometimes even then, human beings can’t always trace the source of a troubled spirit. This only adds to the friction between daily life and a lack of inner peace. It’s a malady that new dresses, workalcoholism, and even good sex can’t cure. This is what it is to live in the modern world; disconnected from the forces that push someone’s idea of progress ahead, but making all who live in the world very much subject to their whims and to the consequences that follow them.

The “Cranes in the Sky” in the title and in the chorus are literally that; construction cranes that seemed to blot out the scenery in a once-quiet town where Solange herself once found solace. Here they serve as a metaphor for mindless, voracious building up without the mindfulness of what becomes lost beneath new surfaces, built environments, and political structures. This in turn is a metaphor for all of the things the narrator tries as she seeks to cover up the truth of a situation by adding layers of temporary salves on top of the hurt and anxiety underneath.

 I tried to keep myself busy
I ran around circles
Think I made myself dizzy
I slept it away, I sexed it away
I read it away
Away, away, away, away, away, away
Away, away, away, away, away
Well, it’s like cranes in the sky
Sometimes I don’t wanna feel those metal clouds

– “Cranes in the Sky”, Solange

“Cranes in the Sky” is a highly personal song that came about as its writer struggled with life events. But it is also one that suggests the demands of single-minded agendas attached to constant expansion. It implies the ways that agendas are imposed on people whether they are willing to submit to them or not, forcing populations to deal with changes and movements without time to process their implications. These themes lend the song incredible thematic dimension as an artistic work that is political and yet also remains highly personal, capturing emotional states of mind and concepts of great political import all at once.

This tune is a masterclass in striking a balance between these poles. Among other things, it invites all kinds of socially pertinent questions around how the mainstream defines the concept of progress and its relationship, or lack thereof, to social equity, spiritual contentment, and freedom from violence. These ideas cast light on social gaps that also can’t be pushed away with consumerism, overwork, or with shiny technological fads intended to define the future for everybody when so often they only serve the agendas of the few in the immediate present.

At the center of this song, Solange’s lyrics quietly suggest that something has to give and not just in her own life. It’s a song that’s fraught with frustration. But it’s also one that contains a sense of power in knowing the source of one’s pain enough to understand oneself all the more, clearing the skies where the industrious cranes of progress obscure the view and are in fact revealed to be distractions in their own right.

Solange is an active songwriter and performer today.

To learn about the background of how she created the material for A Seat at the Table, listen to this 8-minute conversation with Solange at NPR from 2016 and/or read the transcript. In it, she talks about reconnecting with her family and cultural roots in Louisiana and how that helped her to shape the songs on the record.

And for more on Solange and her thematic explorations of Blackness on her follow-up album When I Get Home, read this article from 2019 which is also by Britt Julious and published in The Guardian.

Enjoy!

#2010sMusic #neoSoul #PoliticalSongs #ProgressiveRB #Solange

Band Aid Sing “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”

Listen to this track by collective chart-topping voices of their pop music generation Band Aid. It’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, a mega-selling and generation-defining charity single released just in time for the titular holiday in 1984. Bob Geldof of The Boomtown Rats and Midge Ure of Ultravox co-wrote this song with a yuletide theme in aid of famine relief in Ethiopia. To record it, they gathered musical friends and peers together in Sarm West recording studio in London to perform the song as one big-haired supergroup.

The participants in Band-Aid spanned a wide segment of the pop music spectrum in Britain and Ireland at the time. Members from some of the biggest bands in the world including Duran Duran, U2, Spandau Ballet, The Police, Culture Club, Wham!, and others were on the scene to add their very famous voices to the song. There were even a few Americans (Kool & the Gang, Jody Watley) here and there who were in London around the time of the session on November 25.

Everyone’s egos seemed to be in check the whole way along. Even the video was something of a low-budget and low-concept idea. This was in part due to the very narrow window of time in getting it out as a Christmas single. But otherwise, the novelty of seeing some of the era’s favourite pop stars laying it down in the studio together was a big enough hook to get the video onto MTV and other essential platforms to wide exposure and audience acclaim.

The central idea for the song started with a BBC news segment on what was happening in Ethiopia at the time; a terrible convergence of forces that ranged from corrupt governments, bad harvests, drought, poor infrastructure, and the military conflicts that made it very difficult to deliver resources communities need to survive. Among the viewers of that news segment was songwriter Bob Geldof and his partner, TV presenter Paula Yates. Geldof felt he was morally obligated to use his musical talents to do something to help. But to score a number one record by that time in his career and therefore make the most significant impact possible to generate sales and raise money, he’d need to go outside of his usual channels to do it.

The first person he called was Midge Ure, a musician who was coming off of a smash hit with Ultravox that same year in “Dancing With Tears in My Eyes“. Instead of a standard Christmas song cover, Ure convinced Geldof to co-write an original song with him to avoid having to pay any royalties to anyone. After some collaboration, they had their song. The other participants would come in later to record it after Geldof contacted, pursued, and ushered them into the studio, with some of the musicians interrupting their own tours to do so. In the meantime, Ure produced the backing tracks in his home studio and served as de facto producer on the session.

The resulting single would go on to raise £8 million in support of famine relief. The song also sparked several other singles that came out around the same time, produced and presented in similar ways. “We Are The World” was the American response. “Tears Are Not Enough” was the Canadian equivalent. There were other sessions and songs from other countries as well. Since then, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” has been re-released a number of times over the decades along with new versions that include new generations of pop stars. By the Nineties, there was even a Simpson’s parody of this kind of all-star charity single. You know you’ve won the pop culture game when you get on The Simpsons’ radar.

When it came to the release of the original “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, there was a split between how critics received it (not well), and how the public received it as expressed in record sales (very well). As it turned out, both camps were right about it. People were right to buy it since it represented an act of compassion. But despite the worthiness of the cause that inspired it, the critics were and are right about it, too. It’s not that great a record and not that great a song. It relies very heavily on what the singers bring to it, which adds up to quite a lot in places. But it’s not quite enough to make it very artful on its own. Writers and instigators Geldof and Ure weren’t too bothered by any of that. Even they knew that they’d written and recorded far better songs between them. To them, the song wasn’t the point. The money was.

The criticism continued as the decades rolled on. In some ways, it deepened. Much of that criticism focuses on how one-dimensional, condescending, and even factually inaccurate the lyrics are. It can be a cringeworthy exercise to consider many of the song’s perspectives on what Ethiopian people know or don’t know about Christmas or any other subject. This presumably includes their seeming lack of awareness and agency as to their economic, political, and environmental situation. The picture that many have in this song is that Ethiopian people were waiting around to be saved. “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was certainly not the first expression of this false idea. This kind of messaging was common even from formal charity organizations of that time.

This is not to say that Geldof and Ure intended to write a song with such an uniformed perspective. It certainly doesn’t mean that they held these kinds of views in any conscious way, necessarily. The intended sentiment behind the statement do they know it’s Christmas? wasn’t really meant to be about any of that. The song’s central idea is that when you’re in indescribable agony where you are, it’s hard to remember that joy exists anywhere else, even at Christmas.

That point gets lost in the shuffle in this tune. It would get lost in any pop song that deals in broad strokes in reaction to nuanced and complicated problems. Even so, the more historically recent indictment that this tune is Eurocentric and even colonial in its central viewpoint is hard to ignore or refute.

In addition to questions around the song’s artistic worth and social implications, there are also some questions about its effectiveness as a money-raising effort. How much money and food actually reached the Ethiopian people thanks to this pop single and subsequently from Live Aid by the summer of the following year? How much did these efforts help in the long term? That’s hard to determine.

In fact, there are difficult stories to tell on that front characterized by making deals with the corrupt governments, poor planning, lack of knowledge and cultural sensitivity, bad communications, and a hubristic failure to acknowledge the intricacies of the situation while facing up to one’s own limitations in light of them. The overall scalability of charitable efforts against all that represents a very important set of issues to examine. This is true whether we’re talking about a generation-defining, million-selling number one Christmas single or not.

Overall then, judging the quality and the intention behind this humble Christmas charity single actually turns out to be pretty complicated and even controversial. But is it really as bad as all that? Is there no value to be found in this tune that remains to be so beloved as a heartfelt expression of concern and heartbreak? Can this song be preserved somehow, or at least re-contextualized so that it can be better understood in today’s era? Or, must we condemn it to the fuchsia-coloured flames of Eighties Hell along with designer jeans, crimped hair, and the 20-minute workout?

Given the complex criticisms aimed at it, maybe it’s best to consider what is simple and pure about “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by asking a couple of pointed questions about it. First; was it a good idea for the pop stars of the time with large audiences and access to big platforms to broadcast the need to feed people and support them in a troubled time? Of course it was. Between that and doing nothing, maybe putting out an earnest, shallow, Eurocentric record that seems to make some pretty clumsy assumptions about the way people in other countries live isn’t the worst thing that one could do with one’s time. The execution and follow-up may be another matter to discuss. But the original intent was pure.

Second; did the record have a largely positive cultural impact all over the world and raise awareness about an important issue? Damn right it did. Everyone of a certain generation remembers when they first heard this tune and saw the video. As for its social value, it was enough to get a whole generation of Western teenagers thinking globally and to consider that there really is a world outside our window that is not like the one we live in. To what degree that spurred further action beyond buying a pop record is hard to determine, maybe. But this song did its part to plant the seeds of some very important ideas about how the world works in reference to socioeconomic issues as adulthood loomed ahead of us.

“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” is a curio of its era. There is plenty to criticize in it. But it may also be helpful to think of it as some awkward steps in the start of a journey. It was one that found many of us who are burdened with Eurocentric perspectives and biases to be well-meaning, but also very unsteady on our sociopolitical pins. The sentiments in the song are native to an era before we built up our knowledge around global issues and before serious examinations of colonial attitudes to which we are still prone today became mainstream. Like many of the opinions we all once held and espoused when we were younger, it’s perhaps a constructive exercise to consider this song’s sentiments as a part of an in-transit perspective rather than as a definitive statement about how European rock stars can save the world.

This song was never meant to be that anyway. It was meant to raise money to help people during a specific time and place and set of circumstances. It’s the result of two musicians, and eventually many musicians, trying to do that using the best tools at hand to suit their particular talents. The dire situation the Ethiopian people were in then is still true for many people in many parts of the world today. So, now that we’re so much more evolved in our thinking around all that, what are we going to do about it using our own particular talents? Maybe an effort like an all-star celebrity pop single in time for Christmas isn’t exactly applicable. But if not that, then what?

To start and/or continue thinking about that question, here’s a link to the United Nation’s World Food Program to learn more about food insecurity all over the world and what people and organizations are doing about it.

For more information about how they made the “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” video, check out this 28-minute mini-documentary that will certainly press the nostalgia button in many a Generation Xer out there.

If you’re interested in the personal perspectives of Midge Ure and Bob Geldof who look back on this time in their careers, here they are talking all about that along with some of the other participants of this culturally resonant recording session.

Enjoy!

#80sMusic #BritishMusic #charitySingles #ChristmasSongs #PoliticalSongs #WorldEvents

Listen to this track by former Alabama Shakes vocalist and guitarist turned stylistically exploratory solo artist Brittany Howard. It’s “13th Century Metal”, a cut from her 2019 debut record Jaime. The album’s title is in tribute to Howard’s late older sister who died at the tender age of 13. Jaime remains to be a beloved figure who helped inspire her younger sister to express herself through art, including songwriting.

The title of this particular song refers to its imposing feel as defined by its author, inspired in part by Gregorian chants of the 13th century. Maybe this is what the equivalent of heavy metal might have been in a time in history when “iron maiden” was a perhaps a more literal reference than it would be later on. Yet to that point, the title also evokes images of smiths, anvils, bellows, hammers, tongs, and the creation of forged implements. These were put through the fire to make them sturdier, hardier, and more resilient to do what they were designed to do. In this context “metal” and “mettle” turn out to be pretty interchangeable.

There are definite parallels to be found here from an artist who has undergone a similar forging process to temper her to do what she does. As Alabama Shakes broke out on the international scene in the early 2010s, Brittany Howard showed herself to be a formidable musician across a spectrum of classic rock music traditions from Muscle Shoals to Headley Grange. This song blurs stylistic lines even beyond that of her former band, establishing her approach to genres as paints in a paintbox, not the box itself.

Apart from that, the lyrical content of the song and its presentation is less like a rock single, and more like a sound collage to accompany a manifesto about how the artist perceives the world and herself as a person living in it. In kicking off Howard’s solo career, “13th Century Metal” serves as a kind of central statement to define herself in a new phase of life and career, suggesting the emotional context that applies the most resonantly to the material that she’s putting out under her own name. At the same time, this centerpiece of Brittany Howard’s debut record is not all about the artist. “13th Century Metal” is also a unique invitation to us listeners, too. More on that in a bit.

In the meantime, this tune also represents a new approach to making music as differentiated from Howard’s earlier output with the band. The sound on this song and on the rest of the record diverges from the hard rock with classic soul flourishes of Alabama Shakes. This is not necessarily a means to distance herself from a former sound. It’s more of a product of her enthusiasm. The writing and recording process evidently found Howard like a kid in a candy store. The process pulled her in a number of directions as she worked on material as she was finding out for herself what the record was going to sound like only in increments.

Here on this song, electronics, production effects, woozy psychedelia, and sampled break beats take the place of muscular rock guitar riffs and soul inflections, although still with a Bonham-like percussive weight to anchor it. “13th Century Metal” suggests the sounds of the church, but in a different way than is reflected in her past classic soul references. Instead, this song features an echoey spoken word delivery imbued with MLK civil rights-era rhetorical passion. In this, it initially comes off like a sermon to the congregation of all humanity amidst the chaotic noise of the 21st century. Howard’s voice only just rises above the din with a whiff of desperation and even terror.

As for the invitation she’s extending in “13th Century Metal”, Howard’s message is simple enough: we are all brothers and sisters, so do the best you can to be kind to your fellow man. Give it to love. It feels like a good deal of this advice is aimed at herself as much as anyone. All told, “13th Century Metal” is the sound of a person making a decision about the kind of human being she wants to be. We, as her audience, bear witness. Among other things of course, this is a great theme for a debut solo record. Yet in this, the song isn’t really a sermon at all. It’s an acknowledgement of her own self-doubt as met by her determination as a person who’s climbing the same hills we all are.

As much as this song sounds like the herald to a new era for Howard as a solo artist and as an individual, it also suggests that the world itself was moving toward something new along with her. Within its lines, it captures the emotional undercurrents and political headwinds of the time when paradigms were shifting. The mid to late 2010s were fraught with shocking rhetoric around class, race, gender, human rights, violence, sexuality and any number of other issues. Wrongful deaths and riots blighted the landscape. News headlines shocked us to the point of disbelief along with the think pieces and social media diatribes that followed. In the same way that is true today, we had to gird ourselves for what might come next.

That period contained the beginnings of the uncertainty that has since given way to downright destructive narratives that are so uncomfortably commonplace today. These struggles revealed how far the world had to go before we get to where we hope to go as a civilization that truly serves everyone. Donald Trump being president did not, and now still does not, help. The movement behind his rise to power was and remains to be indicative of heels being dug in to resist what’s necessary and overdue where social change is concerned. We’re still feeling the effects of that today, now very likely to intensify over the next four years.

“13th Century Metal” also carries an invitation to consider who we all want to be as people as we face an awful and repressive social environment. It’s therefore also in consideration of what kind of world we want to make for ourselves and for each other in resistance to it. This is a call to rebellion. That certainly includes being kind, mindful, empathetic, self-aware, and wary. These were radical political choices by the time Jaime came out. They remain to be so today, and all the more.

As much as this song may be considered as a personal manifesto and a sermon to the church of humanity, the takeaway is more profound and deeper still. This is a hopeful prayer that in being thrust into the fire, we will not only survive, but also be tempered in our strength of will and knowledge to create a better world after all.

Brittany Howard is an active artist today. You can learn more about her and her more recent output at brittanyhoward.com.

For more background on Howard’s life as a developing artist and on her approach to writing the material for the Jaime album, including this song, check out this interview with Brittany Howard at The New Yorker.

If it’s more music that you’re after, check out Brittany Howard’s Tiny Desk Concert in which she demonstrates her amazing vocal capacity that puts her in the same league as any classic soul vocalist you can name.

Enjoy!

https://thedeletebin.com/2024/11/11/brittany-howard-sings-13th-century-metal/

#2010sMusic #BrittanyHoward #confessionalSongwriting #experimentalRock #PoliticalSongs

Listen to this track by celebrated film soundtrack composer and singer-songwriting satirist Randy Newman. It’s “Just a Few Words in Defense of Our Country”, a cut as taken from his 2008 album Harps and Angels. This was his first album of original songs since 1999’s Bad Love, even if it borrowed one tune (“Feels Like Home”) from his Faust musical. A few years prior to the record’s release, Randy Newman revisited many of his older songs for his Randy Newman Songbook, Vol. 1 project. This may have inspired this return as a record-maker with an intention to write songs for an album rather than for a film or stage project.

The critics embraced the new record with open arms. Praise from Robert Christgau, Q Magazine, and other sources rated Harps and Angels as the songwriter’s return to form. This tune in particular caught Christgau’s ear as one of the greatest songs of the 2000s. On a capturing the zeitgeist level alone in terms of its lyrical themes, it’s no wonder it made an impression, carrying Newman’s signature irony as well as it does. His timing was impeccable on that score. The period was certainly a fertile field for his brand of satire as applied to tumultuous world events and their impact on America’s international reputation post 9-11.

With all that said, it doesn’t take too much to make one think that a lot of what the song reveals about history as it compares to the trajectory of American politics goes beyond just a single era. More to that, and with all of the historical references it contains taken into consideration, the song slowly reveals itself to be less of a defense of present-day states, and more of a warning about what might come in the future.

On its surface, “Just a Few Words in Defense of Our Country” provides a down-home apologist homily for a nation that is beloved and despised all at once. This is particularly in reference to the international ire raised during the decade of the song’s release; a time in which many considered America to be a belligerent, willfully obtuse neighbourhood bully. That was a pretty well-earned reputation by the turn of the 21st century. It had been this way for some time even before the kick off to the pre-emptive (and illegal) second Gulf War and the occupation in Afghanistan. This realization was perhaps less apparent to the average person on Main Street USA, making it prime territory for giving voice to Newman’s humble narrator.

Through that voice, “Just a Few Words in Defense of Our Country” casts an eye on history to put the questionable standing of George W. Bush’s America into a helpful (?) context for the benefit of the international community. Its narrator seeks to set the record straight while unintentionally(?) drawing some very unflattering historical comparisons to say the least along the way. At the center of the song is Newman’s aw shucks delivery, here more of a recitation than a singing performance. His delivery is disarming, as intended. It’s accompanied by the song’s delightful Nashville meets NOLA meets cinematic strings musical profile.

The performance itself is cinematic, too. Newman portrays a character in this song; an average American joe with a modest grasp of history. Our down-home narrator compares the insanities of the past with those things in the present which aren’t nearly as bad as all that in comparison; these misunderstandings and faux pas that seem to be putting everyone’s noses out of joint. C’mon! It’s not like we’re as bad as the Spanish Inquisition. Or Caligula. Or Stalin. Or the Chancellor of Germany in the 1930s.

Right?

At the risk of explaining how satire works, it’s still fair to say that a response to these kinds of comparisons aren’t quite so simple. In fact, this is the can of worms Newman is opening in this song. His parallels place American political leadership into that same historical spectrum as the examples of the worst chapters in human history. Even if our shrugging, well-meaning narrator intends this to be a favourable comparison and a defense on the surface, that’s a pretty damning way to condemn an administration if there ever was one. But this song goes beyond that, too.

As “Just a Few Words in Defense of Our Country” continues to unfold, it becomes less of a defense of a nation’s actions or quality of character on the world stage. Instead, it reminds us that the brutality, stupidity, greed, and self-indulgence of the ruling class has always been stitched into the pages of history. This certainly includes American history, many chapters of which Randy Newman has explored in other songs. But it also goes beyond what America is or what it’s supposed to stand for. It veers into the wider territory of humanity’s inhumanity sanctioned by rulers and governments over the course of thousands of years as part of a brutal whole.

This is hard to deny given the narrator’s examples of eras ruled by empires, would-be empires, and dictators asserting their petty, greedy, narrow-minded, obtuse, and cruel impulses to serve their own ends. Of course with Newman, this isn’t the whole story. The comparisons found in “Just a Few Words …” point to something far more worrying that’s less about history, and more about how history tends to inform the future.

Speaking of history for a moment, though, even Newman thought that the Bush, Jr. era was a blip on the map of American history by 2008. After all, overt self-interest and lack of respect for international protocols couldn’t ever be this crude and stark ever again.

Right?

“I knew when I wrote [A Few Words] it wasn’t going to last, because we’re never going to have an administration this bad again. We haven’t in 200-some years. I believe in numbers and the odds are against it.”

~ Randy Newman, ‘I couldn’t have handled success’, The Guardian, July 2008.
(read the whole article)

Mind you, this is still Randy Newman we’re talking about here. His assertion might strike one with the idea that he’s the master of irony in interviews as much as he is when he’s writing songs. But with his well-earned master satirist badge aside, Newman is still an American speaking within a certain historical and cultural context. Playing the odds in an empire’s favour inevitably becomes a zero sum gain over time – even after 200 years. No matter how many romantic myths you build around them to keep them standing upright, empires fall. This is the worrying undercurrent in this song of which perhaps even Newman wasn’t fully aware when he wrote it.

Years later, he’d have a different take on the song in terms of its intent and impact:

“I wrote it because I thought the [second] Bush administration would be one of the worst of my lifetime, maybe the worst we’d ever have. Little did I know [Donald Trump] would make him look like Winston Churchill … I do that song now, and it gets a bigger reaction. Who could have prepared for this?”

~ Randy Newman, ‘Randy Newman: my life in 15 songs’, Rolling stone, September 2017 (read the whole article)

Who indeed could have prepared for this? And why might this song have provoked a bigger reaction by 2017? Because, tragically, it was even easier to see its central truth by then, and more so today; that human history is fed by cause and effect, connecting and perpetuating the harmful mindsets, systems, and decisions of the past to their consequences on present times and the shape of today’s political landscapes. This is an ongoing story and we’re in it right now as much as the people of ancient Rome were in it. Dismissing the evils in the present by comparing them favourably to those of past was always a false comparison and a very dangerous gambit.

That much Newman definitely knew.

As civilizations retrace their steps down the very same roads that led to violence, destruction, and tragedy time and time again, it’s clear that historical events like these cannot be meaningfully judged isolation. They can’t be dismissed as ancient history. Rather, cultures and societies must seriously examine our drive to empire-build. We also have to honestly assess and face up to the human costs of doing so instead of building myths around it to make ourselves feel better. Because, as it turns out, building empires is a pretty destructive habit. We need to kick that habit before it’s too late.

On the publication date of this article, tomorrow is November 5, 2024; the date of U.S. federal election. This election year in the United States has been unprecedented in terms of unfolding events leading up to it that would have been utterly unheard of even in 2008 when Newman put out this song. In large part, these strange courses and events are propelled by a whole intervening era in which formerly-underground fascist movements were empowered by a sitting President. By 2016, they felt perfectly comfortable walking around in the light, thriving on platforms from which they would have been reviled and barred only a few years before. They did this while enjoying protection and given legitimacy by the mainstream press all (disingenuously) in the name of balance. This has only gotten worse.

Who could have prepared for this, indeed?

So, what direction will the nation take? The world is watching as it always has. And as always, we’re rooting for America to do the right thing.

For more information on Randy Newman and this song of his, read this short interview with NPR in which he talks about his preferred approach to writing untrustworthy narrators, his feelings about political songwriting, and about the impact this tune had when he released it.

Otherwise, Randy Newman is an active composer and songwriter today. Check out randynewman.com to learn more about his latest works.

Enjoy!

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#2000sMusic #PoliticalSongs #RandyNewman #satiricalSongs #USPolitics

Listen to this track by synthpop boffin and musical positivity purveyor Howard Jones. It’s “Like to Get to Know You Well”, a single released in Britain in the summer of 1984. It came out in North America later on, and appeared in its international version on the 1984 EP The 12″ Album, which was a series of remixes of songs from 1983’s Human’s Lib, Jones’ breakthrough debut. That version includes the chorus sung in German and French as well as English.

The initial “Like to Get to Know You Well” single was a transitionary release between full-length records, sharing the same lyrical spirit and instrumental approach he’d established on his debut; an unabashedly pop sound driven by synthesizers and programming, with Jones’ effusive vocal at the center of it all. His musical style developed out of his formal training in classical piano, his interest in prog rock as a teenager, and in his exploration of how technology can complement relatable lyrical themes in very singable and danceable pop songs. On this one, Jones mixes a reggae pulse with calypso steel pan sounds to supplement his core synthpop sound with an undeniable vocal hook in the chorus.

“Like to Get to Know You Well” was specifically dedicated to “the original spirit of the Olympics”, an event which roughly corresponded with the song’s release date in the UK. It’s easy to connect this song then with a focus on international affairs and relations. Being the early Eighties, there was also an important subtext to be found there, and with an even greater sense of gravity and hopefulness addressed in this song.

It’s well understood by now how politically polarized the global landscape was by the beginning of the 1980s with Cold War rhetoric of the time gaining ground more and more as the decade progressed. By 1984, the anger and fearfulness that came out of that began to show through in pop music and pop culture all around with allusions to the consequences of political tensions and global conflict in the form of nothing less than Armageddon. It was a tense time, Olympic games notwithstanding.

What was often lacking with these concerns in mind at the time was hopefulness; the idea that we could find common ground across international borders and in ways of thinking; that we could recognize the humanity even in our fiercest rivals. It was the hope that the world would come to its senses and abandon systems and ideologies that caused the fear and hatred that informed the social atmosphere of Reagan’s America and Thatcher’s Britain.

As breezy and light as “Like to Get to Know You Well” is, the song was a deeply political statement about how a basic understanding of each other might alleviate the unnecessary tensions in the world at large. It was certainly in the original spirit of the Olympic Games which, besides as an exercise in friendly rivalries, is about shared passions for achieving excellence and an appreciation for humanity’s amazing physical and mental capabilities. If we all value these things across nations, cultures, and worldviews, then what else might we have in common that we had somehow forgotten or hadn’t considered? How might our greater understanding of each other help us to gain a more meaningful, less violent vision for our world and ourselves as a species?

“Finding all are insecure
Opening the same door
Leaving out a stubborn pride
Seeing from another side”

– “Like to Get to Know You Well”, Howard Jones

Yet the sentiments in this song and on many others in Howard Jones’ catalogue were a tough sell for many in that polarized period. Critically, it was often dismissed as lightweight and throwaway, not fitting in with the vibe of political music made at that time. In some ways, this is understandable. Not many people want to hear about visions for a unified humanity when one’s own government has smashed your union, or decimated your entire industry while spouting the rhetoric of common sense reform. The validity of that is certainly all too relatable today in a landscape full of open xenophobia and all manner of other phobias besides that affect political policy. But at some point, there has to be more to our struggles than simply defending ourselves against bad faith and bad policy.

In 1984, “Like to Get to Know You Well” held an important ingredient necessary to that struggle as much as anger did: the core belief that change is possible. Fighting for human rights is a tough slog without a vision for what the world itself might look like when we win the fight against tyranny, prejudice, and domination. Set to a reggae lilt, this was a song about that ideal of unity that helped listeners with an ear to hear to think that maybe there was an ultimate goal to achieve beyond just the hard scrabble of fighting for human rights on a daily basis in an oppressive era.

“Like to Get to Know You Well” was a breath of fresh air in the enclosed space of that polarized era of the early 1980s. As much as we needed (and still need!) artists to speak out against what was happening on the world stage, in the halls of government, and at shareholder’s meetings for big business interests, we also needed music and art to remind us that the world was not inevitably bound to reach some terrible conclusion; that we were not necessarily locked into a journey toward a mushroom cloud and still aren’t.

Sometimes in troubled eras, all we need is the clear and envisioned hope that we will succeed in our efforts to steer our fate together as a species toward peace, love, and understanding. We need to believe it’s possible. Maybe when we can do that, we can finally get to know each other well enough to believe that most of us want the same thing; a better world.

As athletes and audiences gather for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, an event that kicks off (at the time of this writing) next week July 26 to August 11, perhaps it’s a good time to reflect on that very thought.

Howard Jones is an active artist today. In recent years, he’s put out a series of albums that communicate a re-imagining of the world similar to the same intentions found in this song. You can learn about those releases, other music, and news about tours and other things at howardjones.com.

Also, check out Howard Jones’ more recent performance of “Like to Get to Know You Well” on Live at Daryl’s House which really shows how durable the tune really is as translated into a new arrangement.

Enjoy!

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#80sMusic #HowardJones #PoliticalSongs #SynthesizerMusic #Synthpop

My first 7" single is a song about political leaders for whom objective truth is a joke. It came out 3 years ago and I still have copies available. Get yours now at:
https://jmhart.bandcamp.com/album/bs-blues-b-w-cranes-song

There's even a ridiculous video!
https://youtu.be/PMeky4FRJ8o

#songwriter #IndependentMusic #PoliticalSongs