I can’t recall which of you introduced me to this musician/song, but – thank you.
This has been stuck in my head since I read about the military imbeciles who were flying helicopters close to a crowd of protesters to scare them.
Here comes the helicopter — second time today
Everybody scatters and hopes it goes away
How many kids they’ve murdered only God can say
If I had a rocket launcher… I’d make somebody payI don’t believe in guarded borders and I don’t believe in hate
I don’t believe in generals or their stinking torture states
And when I talk with the survivors of things too sickening to relate
If I had a rocket launcher… I would retaliateOn the Rio Lacantun, one hundred thousand wait
To fall down from starvation — or some less humane fate
Cry for guatemala, with a corpse in every gate
If I had a rocket launcher… I would not hesitateI want to raise every voice — at least I’ve got to try
Every time I think about it water rises to my eyes.
Situation desperate, echoes of the victims cry
If I had a rocket launcher… Some son of a bitch would die
I love the line “I don’t believe in guarded borders and I don’t believe in hate / I don’t believe in generals or their stinking torture states”
One thing you know for sure is that the protesters were peaceful, or the helicopters would have never dared fly in so close. Remember what happened to the black hawk that flew within range of ground-fire in Mogadishu? That was America’s “Charge of the Light Brigade” moment, when they made that clusterfuck into a movie and made the idiots who were responsible for starting a massive gun-battle in a city into heroes. The black hawk at Mogadishu was brought down with a round from an RPG rocket propelled grenade – a rocket launcher.
I know a person who is unwilling to admit that they have never heard of a musician or a song or such-and-such. It’s really strange: “Hey, have you ever had that dish Ferran Adria invented, the potato chip omlette?” “Oh, yeah, sure!” etc. To me, it seems perfectly reasonable that there are great books, songs, musicians, performances, dishes, that I have never encountered. In part, I assume that’s because there are some areas where I don’t search for new stuff – I’m too busy mining new stuff elsewhere. And once you start mining new stuff you realize that there is a whole hell of a lot of stuff! Speaking of which, I got a CD of Russian disco music from the late 80s and it’s completely kick-ass stuff.
It blew my mind when I discovered “Maggot Brain”. It’s EXACTLY my kind of thing, and I was nearly fifty before I heard OF it, let alone heard it.
I*like* it when I find stuff like that – your youth is (out should be) full of those moments of discovery, and they get rarer and more precious with age.
I always loved this song. I remember going to an air show – they should have a different name for those, a huge waste of energy trying to impress people, or something. Anyway an army guy is standing there with a rocket launcher, very proudly showing it to people. I mentioned the song to him but it completely went over his head, he had just never heard of it. But he did impress on me that I, too, could learn how to run a rocket launcher and I had to wonder at his imperviousness to reality. I mean… if **I** can learn to use it…. dude…..
Bruce Cockburn is not only a great singer and songwriter with a social conscience — he’s also an absolutely top-shelf guitarist. In this clip, for example, he’s playing some licks *while singing* that a lot of us hacks would love to be able to do while giving our full concentration.
Thanks, Canada.
Great song.
Bruce Cockburn is a top-shelf sort of human being.
Maybe Intransitive?
I know I’ve posted about this song somewhere, but my memory is so bad I can’t say if it was here. It is one of the most moving songs I’ve ever heard.
The entire Stealing Fire album is a treasure. I’ve always loved this song, but it’s so disheartening. It was first released in 1984, and it’s as relevant today as it was then. Nothing’s changed. Or as Bruce says, “the trouble with normal is it always gets worse.”
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I think “Call It Democracy” could use a revival too (probably the only song ever written about the IMF).
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Padded with power here they come
International loan sharks backed by the guns
Of market hungry military profiteers
Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
With the blood of the poor
.
Who rob life of its quality
Who render rage a necessity
By turning countries into labour camps
Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom
.
Sinister cynical instrument
Who makes the gun into a sacrament —
The only response to the deification
Of tyranny by so-called “developed” nations’
Idolatry of ideology
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North South East West
Kill the best and buy the rest
It’s just spend a buck to make a buck
You don’t really give a flying fuck
About the people in misery
.
IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there’s one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt
.
See the paid-off local bottom feeders
Passing themselves off as leaders
Kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
Open for business like a cheap bordello
.
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
.
See the loaded eyes of the children too
Trying to make the best of it the way kids do
One day you’re going to rise from your habitual feast
To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
They call the revolution
Ridana @ 7
I know of one other anti-IMF song by Thievery Corporation featuring Femi Kuti (son of Fela) called Vampires. It is a great jam, musically, and is full of righteous indignation, lyrically. Highly recommended. Cheers!
Rob Grigjanis (#5) –
I saw the post but didn’t want to toot my own horn.
DonDueed (#3) –
Richard Thompson is a better guitar player, but nowhere near as political (though “Mother Knows Best” is one hell of a song). But both came from the same early 1970s folk-rock era.