Judy Clay and the Youngbloods (inset)
Listen/Download – Judy Clay – GetTogether MP3
Greetings all.
The end of the week is here so I will begin by dropping my periodic reminder to tune in to the Funky16Corners Radio Show podcast, which drops each and every Friday here at Funky16Corners.com. You can subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, dial it in on your mobile device via the TuneIn app, check it out on Mixcloud, or grab yourself an MP3 right here at the blog.
That out of the way, I should tell you that I had something else – much lighter – planned for today’s post, but the events of the outside world were crowding my mind something awful this morning. So after a cup of coffee and some rumination, I figured that I ought to come home and dig something with a message out of the crates.
The last few months (hell, closer to a year) in relation to the upcoming Presidential election have proven to be the rancid cherry atop the shit sundae that has been served up by the opponents of democracy over the last eight (or 36, depending on your frame of reference) years.
The group I speak of is composed of the usual suspects, giant corporations, polluters, homegrown religious fanatics, cowpoke seditionists and every possible iteration of Archie Bunker-esque “populist anger” blowing ugliness at the world from their easy chairs. The combination of hard-edged, professional undermining of society, from those that would straight up fuck any one of us to insert another shiny dime in their offshore tax havens, and the infantile, heavily-armed anger of the dying white hegemony has finally pushed us to the place where we have a leading candidate for the highest office in the land that comes on like PT Barnum and the local schoolyard bully had a baby, and then handed the baby a gun.
If you were so inclined, you could start writing your stack of ‘thank you’ notes to Ronald Reagan, and all of his disciples, who somehow convinced a lot of people that their enemies were not the bosses that busted their unions and converted their once prized jobs into Third World child labor, but rather the cold, tired and huddled masses yearning to breathe free mentioned on the Statue of Liberty.
We live in a world where any number of Republican governors and corporatist Democratic apparatchiks in the school privatization movement (eager to run schools with all the vision they apply to your local Wal-Mart) have people convinced that teachers are the enemy. The same world where the people we’ve elected will turn to us and with a straight face continue to repeat the same insane incantations about deregulation and trickle-down economics that time and experience long ago revealed as a colossal sham.
We live in a world where one side of the political spectrum has collapsed like an angry toddler that has to be dragged through a supermarket, and the other side throws their hands up, without the courage or will to do anything about it.
The amount of ugly debris resulting from this collision – generally hateful, and specifically racist and nativist – is terrifying.
The press, for a variety of reasons a mere shadow of its former self, is filled not with the thinkers that once helped us make sense of an often incomprehensible world, but rather packs of fools that have abdicated their sacred responsibilities and spend their time talking about the election like they’re broadcasting a football game. As a result we are surrounded by people that have been dumbed down, and are fatally disengaged from the process.
It makes me sad, especially since I have young kids who will have to grow into a world that seems increasingly out of control.
This is not to say that all hope is lost, nor should anyone be giving up and preaching the gospel of running away (to Canada, or Europe of anywhere Donald Trump isn’t) because I believe that ultimately, this country is worth fighting for.
I suspect that no matter what happens in November, whether we are suddenly saddled with a lunatic at the helm, maintain an unsatisfactory status quo, or take a difficult first step toward something better, that there will be a lot of unpleasantness ahead.
When someone like the current Republican standard-bearer is allowed to whip a mass of shitheads into a frenzy, that energy has to go somewhere.
Whether it manifests itself as a horrific stain on a once great country, or in impotent rage at a revolution denied, is yet to be seen.
What those of us outside of the bubble need to do is – first and foremost – speak up.
Don’t let the insanity go unchallenged.
Campaign for something better.
Shut off your TV, or at least the part of it that perpetuates the stupidity.
Read a book.
Make something.
VOTE.
Or listen to some music.
It is precisely because I believe in the power of music, to move people and sometimes carry a message, that I do this at all.
I know the political posts are unpopular in some quarters, but as long as I have the ability to lay down and amplify (on some small scale) my thoughts, I’m going to do it.
The song I bring you today should be very familiar to most people of a certain vintage as one of the great peace anthems of the 1960s, as delivered by the Youngbloods.
I have been a huge fan of Judy Clay over the years, both for her duets with Billy Vera, and her solo work. She had a powerful voice.
So when I picked up the 45 of ‘Sister Pitiful’ (her female take on the Otis Redding ‘Mister…’ classic) I was kind of knocked on my ass by the flip side, a heavy, swampy, soulful version of ‘Get Together’.
Where the Youngblood’s version of the song is ethereal and hymn-like, Clay’s take on the song – instantly recognizable as a Muscle Shoals production – is a call to arms.
When the song starts with the words ‘Love is just a song we sing’ but then follows it with the warning shot ‘But fear can make us die’, it ought to turn your head.
Though the Youngbloods released their version in 1967, it didn’t really explode until the middle of 1969. The wistful optimism of the Summer of Love had been washed away by war, riots (race and otherwise) and paranoia.
Clay recorded her version of the song in May 1969, replacing the hippy mellowness with a powerful, gospel-infused cry, pushed along by hard charging bass, drums and horns.
It should have become and anthem all over again, but despite its inarguably high quality, it went largely unnoticed (it doesn’t even get a mention in the Wiki about the song) .
That doesn’t mean it has to stay that way.
Give it a listen, and see if you feel the power, too.
Remember that ‘Keep the Faith’ are words to live by, whatever your faith is,and the raised fist in our logo symbolizes the power of solidarity.
Pull down the ones and zeroes, and pass it on.
See you on Monday.
Keep the faith
Larry
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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.
PS Head over to Iron Leg too.
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