THE SHAPE OF THINGS: FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH
For centuries poets and musicians have been the portents of calamitous events. During the restless years of the late 1960s into the early 1970s songs of protest about war, civil injustice and concerns about the environment made up our playlist.
When reflecting on these songs from my period as a student during the allocated period for outdoor exercise last night I was able to name over 30 tiles whose messages are prescient and meaningful to the situation we find ourselves in today. We did not learn many lessons.
I have distilled the long list to a playlist for COVID19 Spring 2020. The lyrics penned by luminaries such as Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Stephen Stills, Joni Mitichell and Neil Young are chilling reflections for us all. So, I invite you to reflect on their words in my selection of six songs for today. I seek forgiveness from the lyricists for using their words in order to inspire a better future - For What It’s Worth. And, that is the title of my first choice of song released in 1967 by Buffalo Springfield and written by Stephen Stills.
Buffalo Springfield,For What it’s Worth, 1967
There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Jackson Browne, Before the Deluge, 1974
Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent
They were gathering the tools
They would need to make their journey back to nature
While the sand slipped through the opening
And their hands reached for the golden ring
With their hearts they turned to each other's hearts for refuge
In the troubled years that came before the deluge
Cat Stevens (Yusif), Where Do the Children Play? 1970
Well you've cracked the sky, scrapers fill the air
But will you keep on building higher
'Til there's no more room up there?
Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry?
Will you tell us when to live, will you tell us when to die?
I know we've come a long way
We're changing day to day
But tell me, where do the children play?
The Eagles, The Last Resort, 1977
Who will provide the grand design, what is yours and what is mine?
'Cause there is no more new frontier, we have got to make it here
We satisfy our endless needs and justify our bloody deeds
In the name of destiny and in the name of God
And you can see them there on Sunday morning
Stand up and sing about what it's like up there
They called it paradise, I don't know why
You call some place paradise, kiss it goodbye
The Yardbirds, Shapes of Things, 1971
Come tomorrow, will I be older?
Come tomorrow, may be a soldier
Come tomorrow, may I be bolder than today?
Soon I hope that I will find
Thoughts deep within my mind
That won't displace my kind
Bob Dylan, License to Kill, 1983
Man thinks 'cause he rules the earth he can do with it as he please
And if things don't change soon, he will
Oh, man has invented his doom
First step was touching the moon
Now, there's a woman on my block
She just sit there as the night grows still
She say who gonna take away his license to kill?
Now, he's hell-bent for destruction, he's afraid and confused
And his brain has been mismanaged with great skill
All he believes are his eyes
And his eyes, they just tell him lies
Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi, 1970
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got til its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
The image below is of graffiti on cafe wall in Ljubljana (Slovenia). They are the lyrics from Nat King Cole’s first ever hit single in 1948 called’ Nature Boy’
