NOTE: I'm happy to say that the problem with the listening widgets from grooveshark is solved and so the widget has returned to the Sunday Service. In addition, I've added one to last week's post of Leaky Lifeboat (for Gregory Corso) by Sonic Youth if you'd care to give a listen.
If there is anyone who is later to the game when it comes to appreciating Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros are you ever in for a treat. Run right out and give a listen to all their songs - an excellent band lead by one of the great musicians of rock, Joe Strummer.
Today's selection is another in a long line of litrock songs that reference the Bible. Just as one of rock's primary progenitor, the Blues, was known as the devil's music, a sort of secular Cain to Gospel music's Abel, so, too, rock is deeply rooted in the Bible. This particular song not only mentions the Bible but the title is an allusion to the well-known spiritual, "Go Down, Moses." There is also the Faulkner book of the same title, but I'm not thinking Joe was going there.
Nice title, that. Here's the lyrics:
Get Down Moses
Once I got to the mountain top, tell you what I could see,
Prairie full of lost souls running from the priests of iniquity
Where the hell was Elijah?
What do you do when the prophecy game was through?
We gotta take the walls of Jericho
Put your lips together and blow
To the very top
They say the truth crystallizes like jewels in the rock, in the rock
Get Down Moses - part another sea
Carve another tablet out of L.S.D.
Get Down Moses - out in Tennessee
Get Down Moses - down in the street
The blood is washing down all the gravel to our feet
Get Down Moses - down in the pit
Lying in a dream, cross battle field,
Crashing on a downtown strip,
Looking in the eyes of the diamonds and the spies and the hip
Who's sponsoring the crack ghetto?
Who's lecturing? Who's in the know and in the don't know?
You better take the walls of Jericho
Put your lips together and blow
Goin' to the very top
Where the truth crystallizes like jewels, in the rock, in the rock
Get Down Moses - from the eagle's aerie
We gotta to make new friends out of old enemies
Get Down Moses - back in Tennessee
Get Down Moses - down with the dreads
They got a lotta reasoning in a dreadhead
Get Down Moses - down in the street
Get Down Moses
Get Down Moses - part another sea
Carve another tablet out of L.S.D.
Get Down Moses - out in Tennessee
Get Down Moses - down in the street
The blood is washing down all the gravel to our feet
Get Down Moses - down in the pit
Get Down Moses
Get Down Moses
Get Down Moses
We need to eat, we gotta chew it over with our wisdom teeth
Get Down Moses
Yes, indeed, "Where the truth crystallizes like jewels, in the rock, in the rock."
The rock, the rock.
Finally, here's an electric live performance, with varied lyrics, just a month before Joe's death:
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This week's feature poems come from Lilliput Review #94 and sat side-by-side on a tiny little page. One is by the artist/poet Wayne Hogan, the other by Huff (Albert Huffstickler). They make as good companions as they did 13 plus years ago in December 1997.
The Way It Is And Will Be Was
Paddling
up a Venetian canal
leaving a trail you'll never
come back on but
can see from a long way off
as it lasts only
a moment in the pouring rain
Wayne Hogan
the rain
knits us
with threads
of silver
Albert Huffstickler
And a third old codger just joined the party, making four by my count. Who brought the cards?
a day for wandering
a day for haiku...
spring rain
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue
best,
Don
Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature. Here's how.
Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 102 songs
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