I’m strongly of the opinion that Phil Ochs’ “Love Me I’m a Liberal,” as timeless as it is, could use an update.
There is this one, from Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon, good as far as it goes, but a lot has happened since 2007. There’s Schumer, there’s Clooney, there’s Kerry on a surfboard, there’s Bill,there’s Hillary (lots of Hillary!), but it would be nice to have a verse or two about the current occupant of the White House, who probably wasn’t even on Jello Biafra’s radar in 2007.
Here also, for comparison, Phil’s version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u52Oz-54VYw
AND, Todd Snider doing a beautiful version of his great song “Thin Wild Mercury,” about the time Dylan kicked Phil out of his limo for “speakin’ his mind.” (It’s pretty stripped down: the studio take is much more uptempo.)
Happy Birthday, Phil. We could have used you the past few years…..
The day started poorly, but has improved some. As happens every year, we were taken by surprise by the first cold night. Heather woke me at 5:30 to announce that the pipes had frozen. We got the water running just in time for the kids to brush their teeth before school. I have that tingly pink-around-the-edges of my field of vision thing I get when I don’t get nearly enough sleep, but I opted for coffee instead of getting back under the covers.
I have a nice fire blazing now, and have just paid a visit to the herd, which is some distance away in a pasture I don’t usually use. My boots crunched brightly as I ambled out there, and was pleased to be accompanied by Marshmallow, our most sociable tomcat. He enjoys my company, I think, and I am sure he really loves the attention he gets from the calves, who get so excited when chasing him they get into that crazy bucking and kicking sideways mode.
The WW Norton tumblr posted the Paul Simon video above today, the anniversary of John Lennon’s death. I was familiar with the song, but it never really registered. Until now.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been reading about Mr. Ace, or maybe because during the 1981 Central Park performance of this song Simon is accosted by a crazed fan (“I gotta talk to you, I gotta talk to you”), a heart-stopping echo of Lennon’s death, but this video clip hit me pretty hard.
And maybe there are more personal reasons, having to do with my own losses over the years–of family members and close friends. Maybe that’s what’s at the root of the sometimes over-the-top public mourning of a famous person–a JFK, a John Lennon, a Lady Di or Michael Jackson. Or even a more subdued sadness at the demise of an almost famous person … such as the late great Johnny Ace. I can’t really say. But today I think this is a great song.
On a cold December evening
I was walking through the Christmas tide
When a stranger came up and asked me
If I’d heard John Lennon had died
And the two of us went to this bar
And we stayed to close the place
And every song we played
Was for The Late Great Johnny Ace, yeah
“I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world.”
–Mayor Mike. See also this
“No one is arguing for rule of law as we once knew it. Rather, it’s a fight between those espousing martial rule of law and those espousing unilateral intelligence ops.”
–Marcy Wheeler, The Rule of Martial Law Vs. the Unitary Spookery
According to the study’s authors, the United States’ poor performance and relatively slow improvement compared with other nations may be attributable to “the lack of universal coverage and high costs of care.”
—U.S. Ranks Last Among High-Income Nations on Preventable Deaths
“Still, the world is watching a geopolitical game of chicken: Western powers are raising the stakes, threatening economic warfare and even kinetic military action unless Iran backs down; Iran believes it can withstand whatever the West and Israel is plausibly going to throw at it, and is firing symbolic warning shots of its own. To avoid an escalation that could lead to war, both sides would have to be offered acceptable off-ramps. But that takes diplomacy, which isn’t exactly in vogue in Western relations with Iran, right now.”
–Tony Karon, After the Embassy Attack: Are Iran and the West Lurching Toward War?