Yes, winter is coming back, as I am too... after a long season of concerts, beach, friends, beers, family and music, a lot of music, time to start writing again has come. And yes, there's a lot to talk about, so much that it's really difficult to find a point to start with.
Or really not, over all the concerts I've had the luck to enjoy this months, one has wondered me above the rest, it was Gil Scott-Heron in Joy Slava, here in Madrid last May 5th. It was simply amazing how this guy get in touch with people with his words, poems and songs, touching every inch inside your soul and brain making you open eyes and think twice everything you see and feel...
But let's go to the beginning of it, as I use to do... It was the early 90's when a Liverpool band, called "The christians" because of the three brothers (Garry Christian, Roger Christian and Russel Christian), decided to release a cover of an old 1974 song written the poet Gil Scott-Heron and musician Brian Jackson called "The bottle".
That cover became one of the greatest hits of The Christians and definitly one of my favourite songs because of the soul and funk sound, some chilling and the definitly chill flutes souns. Along the years I have listened to it from time to time, enjoying it but without more investigation into it.
Early this year, when I started researching songs of my life for this blog and for one of the most important persons in my life, after some revival looking for a John Smooth song called "Promise Land" that I will talk about in another post, I looked for this "The Bottle" song. As soon as I listened to it I realized it wasn't a Christians' song but a song from this Gil Scott-Heron that I had never heard before. And it absolutly shocked me.
After listening to this, I felt like I really had lost years to listen to this guy and I started researching into him, of course my own way which is listening to his music. And each and every song or poem I had the chance to listen to got me more and more into it. There's nothing I could say that can define better his creativity and his soul and his compromise than his own songs and lyrics. Here are a couple of them that really shock me, just do your own search and enjoy it as much as I did, as I still do every day.
"From the indians that welcomed the pilgrims,
to the buffalo runs thorugh the plains,
like the vultures circling beneath the dark clouds,
looking for the rain..."
"... just like the city, stagged on the coastline
living in a nation that just can't stand much more,
like the forest, buried beneath the high way
never had a chance to grow..."
"And I see the robins
perched in barren treetops
watching last-ditch racists marching across the floor,
but just like the peace sign that vanished in our dreams,
never had a chance to grow"
"A junkie walking through the twilight, I'm on my way home...
I've been three days ago but no one seem to now I'm gone"
"Stand as far away from me as you can and ask me why
hang on to your rosary beads close your eyes and watch me die
you keep saying kick it quit it kick it quit it have you ever tried
to turn your sick soul inside out
so that the world, so that the world,
can watch you die..."
"We've all heard so many conflicting words about life wether wrong or right
how you gotta be working hard, and it ain't no easy job
to survive just keep it alive"
"We've all come to think of ourselves as links
in a chain so much to gain
we are the ones that tie our fathers to our sons
don't you know that's how we grow"
"what my life really means is that the songs that I sing
are just pieces of a dream that I am building
and we can make a stand and hey, I'm reaching out my hand
'couse I know damn well we can if we are willing"
I really hope you have enjoyed it and it has awaken something inside you that drives you to listen more to this man, and to pay attention to what he says. And...
Peace go with you Brothers and Sisters.
