This is a song that has long fascinated me. One reason for this is that it's not really a song (despite the title), but was rather originally a poem by Rudyard Kipling. As far as I know, Kipling didn't write it with any musical notation, so Bragg supplied his own.
The song seems pro-revolutionary in spirit, but given Kipling's well-known paternalistic political views, other interpretations are certainly possible. The song is on Billy Bragg's 1996 album "William Bloke", which appeared a couple years before his critically acclaimed "Mermaid Avenue" collaborations with Wilco.
As far as I can tell, Bragg is the first artist to record "A Pict Song". Its lyrics (which are unchanged from the poem) mesh very well with his leftist political stance:
Rome never looks where she treads
Always her heavy hooves fall
On our stomachs, our hearts and our heads
And Rome never hears when we bawl
The Picts were a group of tribes in Scotland about whom little is known. However, the Picts were known to the Romans and were presumably conquered or otherwise dominated by the Romans like much of European civilization was at the time. So, in the poem/song, there is much resentment of the Romans:
No indeed! We are not strong,
But we know Peoples that are.
Yes, and we’ll guide them along,
To smash and destroy you in War!
We shall be slaves just the same?
Yes, we have always been slaves,
But you—you will die of the shame,
And then we shall dance on your graves!
In my mind, this is a pretty perfect protest song (though Kipling may not have intended it as such). It is general in the sense that it can be applied to any group of people who feel dominated by another group. It also strikes a realistic tone throughout, talking about sabotage and civil disobedience as ways to change things:
Leave us alone and you’ll see
How we can drag down the State!
We are the worm in the wood!
We are the rot at the root!
We are the taint in the blood!
We are the thorn in the foot!
However, it ends with resignation (we shall be slaves just the same) which is later echoed by The Who (meet the new boss, same as the old boss). It seems to say that though things can change cosmetically, things don't really fundamentally change. That doesn't mean people shouldn't make the effort though.
Billy Bragg plays this song on solo electric guitar, which recalls his early "Life's A Riot With Spy Vs. Spy" days. It's a pretty simple melody but it's played with great care.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Gimme Shelter, The Rolling Stones
The other day, I was listening to Gimme Shelter by the Rolling Stones as I was driving to work and I realized that it is really the perfect song to close a movie with. This realization may have had something to do with the fact that I recently watched the documentary of the same name (which is about the Stones' famous concert at Altamont where the Hell's Angels, who were providing security for the show, killed a spectator. Interestingly, the filmmakers actually caught the killing on film) for the first time, which used the song over the credits.
Gimme Shelter, written by Mick Jagger & Keith Richards (who is, bizarrely, sometimes credited as Keith Richard) originally appeared on the seminal 1969 release "Let It Bleed". It also appears on their greatest hits compilations "Hot Rocks; 1964-1971" and "Forty Licks". Patti Smith, the legendary punk rocker, recently turned in one of the better covers of it on her 2007 album "Twelve".
The song is notable for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is one of the few Rolling Stones songs which prominently features a female singer. Merry Clayton sings along with Mick Jagger for much of the song, before taking a solo verse about 3 minutes in: "rape, murder, yeah, it's just a shot away". Clayton, who was pregnant at the time, exerted so much energy in her performance that she had a miscarriage when she returned home from the session.
Gimme Shelter's lyrics read as a protest against the Vietnam War specifically and war generally:
War, children, its just a shot away
Its just a shot away
Ooh, see the fire is sweepin
Our very street today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost its way
It's a very effective evocation of that era, in my opinion. When listening to it, you can almost see scenes of people being beaten in the streets, rice paddies burning, and Bell UH-1 Hueys lifting off. The way the song builds from a simple rhythm guitar part to a raucous finale featuring 2 singers, numerous guitars, drums, maracas and more kind of conveys a feeling of a descent from normalcy to chaos.
The song ends on an upbeat note though, when the refrain changes from "war, children, it's just a shot away" to "love, sister, it's just a kiss away". Both sentiments are representative of a world view where any outcome is disconcertingy possible. We're all living on the razor's edge.
Gimme Shelter, written by Mick Jagger & Keith Richards (who is, bizarrely, sometimes credited as Keith Richard) originally appeared on the seminal 1969 release "Let It Bleed". It also appears on their greatest hits compilations "Hot Rocks; 1964-1971" and "Forty Licks". Patti Smith, the legendary punk rocker, recently turned in one of the better covers of it on her 2007 album "Twelve".
The song is notable for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is one of the few Rolling Stones songs which prominently features a female singer. Merry Clayton sings along with Mick Jagger for much of the song, before taking a solo verse about 3 minutes in: "rape, murder, yeah, it's just a shot away". Clayton, who was pregnant at the time, exerted so much energy in her performance that she had a miscarriage when she returned home from the session.
Gimme Shelter's lyrics read as a protest against the Vietnam War specifically and war generally:
War, children, its just a shot away
Its just a shot away
Ooh, see the fire is sweepin
Our very street today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost its way
It's a very effective evocation of that era, in my opinion. When listening to it, you can almost see scenes of people being beaten in the streets, rice paddies burning, and Bell UH-1 Hueys lifting off. The way the song builds from a simple rhythm guitar part to a raucous finale featuring 2 singers, numerous guitars, drums, maracas and more kind of conveys a feeling of a descent from normalcy to chaos.
The song ends on an upbeat note though, when the refrain changes from "war, children, it's just a shot away" to "love, sister, it's just a kiss away". Both sentiments are representative of a world view where any outcome is disconcertingy possible. We're all living on the razor's edge.
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