rain and the rhinoceros

…not by me. Joel has written two great new songs. Listen to What Is Our Voice For? and Swedish Drinking Fighting Friends.

My dear friend Joel Mason at The Herb of Grace has posted a beautiful new song along with some reflections on the mission of the church. 

Dave Warne and I are playing at the Fine Line Music Cafe tonight (318 1st ave n) @ 8PM. Doors open at 7 and we play right at 8. It’ll be a 45 min set and we’ll be doing a combo of both of our songs. Hope you can make it!    

My wonderful and talented father, Roger Flyer, has just completed a new record called “Songs Hidden In Eggs” that is being pressed right now. Within in this week it will be “hot off the press,” so I thought I’d let you in early. They will go fast! He is also playing a number concerts in the next few months at which he will be promoting the new album.

David Bazan, former singer of Pedro the Lion, has been one of the most influential figures in my life. I have seen him perform at least thirty times now. He was in town on Tuesday night at The 7th Street Entry. I stood about ten feet away from him during the opening band’s performance. I thought seriously about talking to him, but what do you say? If I would have managed to build up the nerve to speak to him, I think I would have told him that he helped save me from fundamentalism. I still remember listening to him when I was 14. He really changed my life.

When in Minnepolis he stopped in at The Current and did a “in-studio performance.” Take a listen.

Call it Democracy
By Bruce Cockburn

padded with power here they come
international loan sharks backed by the guns
of market hungry military profiteers
whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
with the blood of the poor

who rob life of its quality
who render rage a necessity
by turning countries into labour camps
modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom
sinister cynical instrument
who makes the gun into a sacrament –

the only response to the deification
of tyranny by so-called “developed” nations’
idolatry of ideology
north south east west
kill the best and buy the rest
it’s just spend a buck to make a buck
you don’t really give a flying fuck
about the people in misery

IMF dirty MF
takes away everything it can get
always making certain that there’s one thing left
keep them on the hook with insupportable debt
see the paid-off local bottom feeders
passing themselves off as leaders
kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
open for business like a cheap bordello

and they call it democracy
and they call it democracy
and they call it democracy
and they call it democracy

see the loaded eyes of the children too
trying to make the best of it the way kids do
one day you’re going to rise from your habitual feast
to find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
they call the revolution
IMF dirty MF
takes away everything it can get
always making certain that there’s one thing left
keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

Listen to the song here

Billy Bragg
Tuesday March 28, 2006
Guardian

Rachel Corrie went to Gaza to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians, whose voice is seldom heard in her country, the US. That she herself should be silenced - first by an Israeli bulldozer, next by a New York theatre cancelling a play created from her words - is a testimony to the power of her message. This song was written on a plane on March 20 and recorded at Big Sky Recordings, Ann Arbor, Michigan on March 22. The tune is borrowed from Bob Dylan.
An Israeli bulldozer killed poor Rachel Corrie
As she stood in its path in the town of Rafah
She lost her young life in an act of compassion
Trying to protect the poor people of Gaza
Whose homes are destroyed by tank shells and bulldozers
And whose plight is exploited by suicide bombers
Who kill in the name of the people of Gaza
But Rachel Corrie believed in non-violent resistance
Put herself in harm’s way as a shield of the people
And paid with her life in a manner most brutal

But you who philosophise disgrace and criticise all fears,
Take the rag away from your face.
Now ain’t the time for your tears.

Rachel Corrie had 23 years
She was born in the town of Olympia, Washington
A skinny, messy, list-making chain-smoker
Who volunteered to protect the Palestinian people
Who had become non-persons in the eyes of the media
So that people were suffering and no one was seeing
Or hearing or talking or caring or acting
And the horrible math of the awful equation
That brought Rachel Corrie into this confrontation
Is that the spilt blood of a single American
Is worth more than the blood of a hundred Palestinians

But you who philosophise disgrace and criticise all fears,
Take the rag away from your face.
Now ain’t the time for your tears.

The artistic director of a New York theatre
Cancelled a play based on Rachel’s writings
But she wasn’t a bomber or a killer or fighter
But one who acted in the spirit of the Freedom Riders
Is there no place for a voice in America
That doesn’t conform to the Fox News agenda?
Who believes in non-violence instead of brute force
Who is willing to confront the might of an army
Whose passionate beliefs were matched by her bravery
The question she asked rings out round the world
If America is truly the beacon of freedom
Then how can it stand by while they bring down the curtain
And turn Rachel Corrie into a non-person?

Oh, but you who philosophise disgrace and criticise all fears,
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now’s the time for your tears.

· My Name Is Rachel Corrie, co-edited by Alan Rickman and Guardian features editor Katharine Viner, opens at the Playhouse theatre tonight. Telephone 0870 060 6631. Listen to an exclusive download (MP3) of the song here.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

Wake up my darlings
Think I am losing my mind
Please pack our belongings
For a place to find

A box of redeemers
Maybe a carton or two
To resist the oppressors
And the free-market zoo

Our beating hearts
They send a message
Above the bombs in the sky
The IMF has sworn they’ll save us
While subsidizing the flies.

tonight Dec 23 @ 9pm
dunn bros. coffee on grand and snelling in st. paul
flyer & mason