Your Mamma’s yappin’ in the back seat
Tell her to push over and move them big feet
Every Monday morning I gotta drive her down to the unemployment agency
Bruce Springsteen, from the album, The River
Sherry Darling lyrics © O/B/O Apra Amcos
*****
I love this reference to working class life. Unemployment has become a permanent way of life for many in the Western world since the mid-1970s, even thought the rich capitalistic aristocracy refuse to acknowledge it.
“It’s the words we don’t say that scare me so“
Elvis Costello and the Attractions, 1979, from the album, ‘Armed Forces’.
Comment: Its the subtlety I like in this line, the way it suggests that the most difficult or violent conversations usually contain many things that are not said, which then creates even more difficulty.
Tim
I was scared of dentists and the dark
I was scared of pretty girls and starting conversations.
Vance Joy, 2014. From the album Dream Your Life Away
I think this is a good description of the anxieties children and teens experience as they are navigating the complicated world of growing up.
But what I need to hear now
Is your sincere apology
And when you mean it, I’ll believe it
If you text it, I’ll delete it
Let’s be clear, my dear
7 Things, 2008, Miley Cyrus
Songwriters: Antonina Armato / Miley Cyrus / Tim James
From the album Breakout.
7 Things lyrics © Walt Disney Music Company
Here is an early mention of texting, a totally new way of contacting people. Before texting people actually had to ring, or email, or even write a letter.
Texting is a massive addition to our communication; helping people to make quick contact without having the receivor of the message necessarily be available at the time to answer the phone. It has been a huge development.
Initially old people complained about young people using this new fangled technology and always texting rather than ringing – and this song refers to that sort of issue. But it didn’t take long for the older generation to realise the advantage of texting and use it themselves within their business world, and to send messages to their children.
Eirene
There’s a girl falling in love near where the pianola stands
With her young local factory out-of-worker, just holding hands . . .
Flame Trees, from album Twentieth Century, 1984.
Lyrics by Don Walker, music by Steve Prestwich.
This is a great reference to the youth unemployment problems of the late 70s and early 80s, a situation that has become a permanent part of modern western society, especially in rural areas, which is the setting of this song.
‘It’s an American dream, includes Indians too’
‘San Franciscan Nights’ by Eric Burdon and the Animals from the Winds of Change album, 1967.
A folksy hippy flavoured paen to the city of San Francisco with a plea for love and not war which features an early sympathetic pop culture reference to the Indians (native Americans in today’s more accurate language).
‘When you ain’t got nothing you got nothing to lose’
‘Like A Rolling Stone’, by Bob Dylan, from the album Highway 61 Revisited, 1965.
One of the most famous songs of all time with a swag of memorable lyrics. This one appeals to me a lot because it is so typically Dylan in its structure and conception.
‘Forgiveness doesn’t come with a debt’
‘I Take My Chances’ by Mary Chapin Carpenter, from the album Come On Come On, 1994.
The time has come
To say fair’s fair
To pay the rent
To pay our shareThe time has come
A fact’s a fact
It belongs to them
Let’s give it back
Beds are Burning, Midnight Oil, from the album Diesel and Dust, 1987
I am posting this in reference to the current debate about what day Australia should use to celebrate their country.
Australia Day” is currently celebrated on 26 January, the anniversary of the British ‘First Fleet’s’ arrival to New South Wales, bringing with them convicts, to establish a permanent colony upon the land. Another words, it is when Britain invaded the land formerly occupied by Aboriginal peoples who had been there for something like 50,000 years. The British came in and ‘settled’, claiming the land as ‘terra nullius’, meaning no one owned the land, which they said gave them a right to claim it as theirs.
Of course people did live there, as already stated, and had for 50,000 years, but they were not European and Christian and did not farm the land, they hunter and gatherers. In 18th understanding this was not important as they were simply seen as ‘primitive savages’.
So – times have moved on, and many of the white folk of Australia have – to a fair extent – recognised the error of those days, and that the Aboriginal people are worthy of respect that their land was stolen from them. We cannot solve the problem by simply returning to the countries we came from, it is too late for that, so we need to work out a way to compromise, recognise the indigenous past and the mistakes the British made, and build a new future with our multicultural population.
However, we STILL celebrate Australia Day on that day. Many want a day when we can celebrate the modern multi-cultural 21st century Australia, but to me the 26th January is not that day. It is just a constant reminder to the Aboriginal peoples of the tragedy of that event.
If we want an Australia Day we can all enjoy, and not just the white population, then we should “move on” and choose another day. 26th January can still be recognised as the day the First Fleet came, but do impose on that an expectation that all Australians can celebrate it.
A little piece of you
The little peace in me
Will die (This is not a miracle)
For this is not America.
THIS IS NOT AMERICA – David Bowie, Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays, 1985, the John Schlesinger film The Falcon and the Snowman.
This song belongs to 1985, the era of Reagan, and was popular with those who felt disengaged by his rule.
While it is an old, 20th century, Cold War song, I feel the lyrics resonate well with the contemporary situation in the USA. Their words, and their message, echo through the years. What is happening in America today is not what America, to me, means. Hopefully, these days will be over quickly, and quietly, and we can return to the America that supported liberty and justice for ALL.
Rock Lyric Quotes 