Tiassa
07-25-07, 03:44 AM
Listening to Sonic Youth, Floater, and the Flaming Lips hasn't helped. I've a couple of songs stuck in my head, and intend to exorcise them now. Apologies to anyone who receives the echo.
Oppskrift for Herrefolk (Recipe for a Master Race)
by Mari Boine Person, translated from Sami to English in liner notes
Draw boundaries on the map, and call it The State
Be King Minister, Protector and Father.
Send bailiffs and businessmen, priests and soldiers
To the people who own the land you take.
Use Bible and booze and bayonet.
Break promises and agreements,
Be a diplomat.
Use articles of law against ancient rights.
Create prejudice, discrimination, and hate.
Let no one question your authority.
That's how you suppress a minority.
Let language and culture take their place in the museum
As a research object and tourist attraction.
Give lively speeches on each festive occasion.
Let it disintegrate and die, that which was a nation.
Let no one question your authority.
That's how you create a minority.
Okay, and just a few verses of the second one. It's an annoying melody easily defined by its rhythm:
John Brown's Body (excerpt)
by W. W. Patton
.... He captured Harper’s Ferry, with his nineteen men so few,
And frightened "Ol' Virginny" till she trembled through and through;
They hung him for a traitor, themselves the traitor crew,
But his soul is marching on.
John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see,
Christ who of the bondmen shall the Liberator be,
And soon throughout the Sunny South the slaves shall all be free,
For his soul is marching on.
The conflict that he heralded he looks from heaven to view,
On the army of the Union with its flag red, white and blue.
And heaven shall ring with anthems o’er the deed they mean to do,
For his soul is marching on.
It could be worse, I suppose. But, again, whoever picks up the echo from John Brown's body ... really, I'm sorry.
Oppskrift for Herrefolk (Recipe for a Master Race)
by Mari Boine Person, translated from Sami to English in liner notes
Draw boundaries on the map, and call it The State
Be King Minister, Protector and Father.
Send bailiffs and businessmen, priests and soldiers
To the people who own the land you take.
Use Bible and booze and bayonet.
Break promises and agreements,
Be a diplomat.
Use articles of law against ancient rights.
Create prejudice, discrimination, and hate.
Let no one question your authority.
That's how you suppress a minority.
Let language and culture take their place in the museum
As a research object and tourist attraction.
Give lively speeches on each festive occasion.
Let it disintegrate and die, that which was a nation.
Let no one question your authority.
That's how you create a minority.
Okay, and just a few verses of the second one. It's an annoying melody easily defined by its rhythm:
John Brown's Body (excerpt)
by W. W. Patton
.... He captured Harper’s Ferry, with his nineteen men so few,
And frightened "Ol' Virginny" till she trembled through and through;
They hung him for a traitor, themselves the traitor crew,
But his soul is marching on.
John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see,
Christ who of the bondmen shall the Liberator be,
And soon throughout the Sunny South the slaves shall all be free,
For his soul is marching on.
The conflict that he heralded he looks from heaven to view,
On the army of the Union with its flag red, white and blue.
And heaven shall ring with anthems o’er the deed they mean to do,
For his soul is marching on.
It could be worse, I suppose. But, again, whoever picks up the echo from John Brown's body ... really, I'm sorry.