You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go

You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
---Bob Dylan


Madeleine Peyroux

I’ve seen love go by my door
It’s never been this close before
Never been so easy or so slow.
Been shooting in the dark too long
When somethin’s not right it’s wrong
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Dragon clouds so high above
I’ve only known careless love,
It’s always hit me from below.
This time around it’s more correct
Right on target, so direct,
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Purple clover, Queen Anne’s lace,
Crimson hair across your face,
You could make me cry if you don’t know.
Can’t remember what I was thinkin’ of
You might be spoilin’ me too much, love,
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Flowers on the hillside, bloomin’ crazy,
Crickets talkin’ back and forth in rhyme,
Blue river runnin’ slow and lazy,
I could stay with you forever and never realize the time.

Situations have ended sad,
Relationships have all been bad.
Mine’ve been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud.
But there’s no way I can compare
All those scenes to this affair,
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Yer gonna make me wonder what I’m doin’,
Stayin’ far behind without you.
Yer gonna make me wonder what I’m sayin’,
Yer gonna make me give myself a good talkin’ to.

I’ll look for you in old Honolulu,
San Francisco, Ashtabula,
Yer gonna have to leave me now, I know.
But I’ll see you in the sky above,
In the tall grass, in the ones I love,
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Life is Sweet

Life is Sweet
---Natalie Merchant



It's a pity
It's a crying shame
He pulled you down again
How painful it must be
To bruise so easily
Inside

It's a pity
It's a downright crime
It happens all the time
You want to stay little daddy's girl
You want to hide from a vicious world
Outside
Don't cry
You know the tears will do no good
So dry your eyes

Oh, your daddy
He's the iron man
Battleship wrecked on dry land
Your mamma
She's a bitter bride
She'll never be satisfied
Do you know?
And that's not right

But don't cry
You know the tears will do no good
So dry your eyes

Oh, they told you life is hard
Misery from the start
It's dull
It's slow
It's painful

But, I'll tell you life is sweet
Inspite of the misery
There's so much more to be grateful

Well, who do you believe?
Who will you listen to?
Who will it be?
'Cause it's high time that you decide
In your own mind

I've tried to comfort you
I've tried to tell you to be patient
They are blind
And they can't see

Fortune gonna come one day
They're all gonna fade away
Your daddy, the war machine
and
Your momma, the long and suffering
Prisioner of what she can not see

For they told you life is hard
Misery from the start
It's dull
It's slow
It's painful

But, I'll tell you life is sweet
Inspite of the misery
There's so much more to be grateful

So, who will you believe?
Who will you listen to?
Who will it be?
Because it's high time that you decide
It's time to make up your own
your own state of mind

Oh, they told you that life is long
Be thankful when it's done
Don't ask for more
be grateful

But, I'll tell you life is short
Be thankful
Because before you know
It will be over
'Cause life is sweet
Life is, oh, so very short
Life is sweet
And life is, oh, so very short
Life is sweet

And life is sweet
And life is sweet

My Skin

My Skin
--Natalie Merchant



Take a look at my body
Look at my hands
There's so much here that I don't understand
Your face say these promises
Whispered like prayers
I don't need them
Because I've been treated so wrong
I've been treated so long
As if I'm becoming untouchable
Well, content loves the silence
It thrives in the dark
With fine winding tendrils
That strangle the heart
They say that promises sweeten the blow
But I don't need them, no
I don't need them
I've been treated so wrong
I've been treated so long
As if I'm becoming untouchable
I'm the slow dying flower
In the frost killing hour
Sweet turning sour and untouchable
Oh, I need the darkness
The sweetness
The sadness
The weakness
Oh, I need this
I need a lullaby
A kiss good night
Angel sweet love of my life
Oh, I need this
I'm the slow dying flower
In the frost killing hour
Sweet turning sour and untouchable
Do you remember the way that you touched me before
All the trembling sweetness I loved and adored
Your face saving promises whispered like prayers
I don't need them
Oh, I need the darkness
The sweetness
The sadness
The weakness
Oh, I need this
I need a lullaby
A kiss good night
Angel sweet love of my life
Oh, I need this
Well is it dark enough
Can you see me
Do you want me
Can you reach me
Oh, I'm leaving
You better shut your mouth
And hold your breath
And kiss me now
And catch your death
Oh, I mean this
Oh, I mean this

Stop Throwing My Country To The Wind

Stop Throwing My Country To The Wind
---Simin Behbahani (2009)(Translated by Kaveh Safa and Farzaneh Milani)

If the flames of anger rise any higher in this land
Your name on your tombstone will be covered with dirt.

You have become a babbling loudmouth.
Your insolent ranting, something to joke about.

The lies you have found, you have woven together.
The rope you have crafted, you will find around your neck.

Pride has swollen your head, your faith has grown blind.
The elephant that falls will not rise.

Stop this extravagance, this reckless throwing of my country to the wind.
The grim-faced rising cloud, will grovel at the swamp's feet.

Stop this screaming, mayhem, and blood shed.
Stop doing what makes God's creatures mourn with tears.

My curses will not be upon you, as in their fulfillment.
My enemies' afflictions also cause me pain.

You may wish to have me burned , or decide to stone me.
But in your hand match or stone will lose their power to harm me.

Christians Murdered Indians

Christians Murdered Indians
---Corporate Avenger

Even in the initial stages of contact between European Christians and Native Indian people the stage was set for ethnocentrism, and the attitude towards the Indians was that of Christian superiority. The Indians were read a proclamation in Spanish which they had no hope of understanding, they had no hope of understanding the death sentence they were being read, and it went something like this:

"We ask and require you to acknowledge the church as the ruler and superior of the whole world and the high priest called pope and in his name the king of Spain as lords of this land. If you submit we shall receive you in all love and charity and shall leave you, your wives and children and your lands free without servitude, but if you do not submit we shall powerfully enter into your country and shall make war against you, we shall take you and your wives and your children and shall make slaves of them and we shall take away your goods and shall do you all the harm and damage we can."

2000 years ago we were all tribal.
Then came the missionaries with their fucking bible.
1492 began the termination
The holocaust of our Indian nations
Yeah, with Christian love and a moral authority
They killed our medicine men and stole our country
I never claimed this shit was poetry
It's just the fucking lies of Christianity
You will pray to the lord and get down on your knees
Here's a cross for your back and the coughing disease
Though you helped us survive we will laugh while you bleed
Then deny what we did, write our own history
We will kidnap your children and cut off their hair
Silence their language and outlaw their prayers
Beat them blind until they believe
In the blood of Jesus Christ our king
Christians murdered Indians
Columbus murdered children and now we have a holiday
Still you want to deny your history
Look to the sky for your god to justify
As you commit cultural genocide
Christians came and the natives they did hang
13 at a time for Jesus and his gang
We are the ones you had to dehumanize
So your murder and greed could be justified
The belly of the church is full
With the blood of all those heathen fools
Who would not receive the gift of Christ?
So we burned them as a sacrifice
To our baby killing god above
To our mother church and all her love
We will steal their gods and subjugate
Those who don't believe we'll ahnilate

"The Spaniards made bets as to who would slit a man in two or cut of his head with one blow. They tore babies from their mother's breast by their feet and dashed their head against the rocks. They hanged Indians by thirteen in honor and reverence for their redeemer and their twelve apostles. They put wood underneath and with fire burned the Indians alive."

Christians murdered Indians
We believe in the earth, the sky and dreams
The universe and the creator who gave us these
The sacred gift of life and human beings
That makes you perpetrate the hate to ahnilate
So here I am the savage civilized
Voice of the dead and my ancestor's cries
And like the ghosts of this land you can't erase
I see blood on the hands of the master race.
500 years of manifest destiny
500 years of resistance to the enemy
You have faith in the rivers, the mountains, the trees
We've a murdering god to replace all of these
With the blood of forgiveness you too can be free
Or the wrath of Jehovah you're sure to receive
We will baptize you with the blood of the lamb
With the sword and the gospel we will conquer your land
You will join our church and be glad to be saved
Or we'll slaughter your children and your women we'll rape.
Christians murdered Indians
I see blood on the hands of the master race.

The Backlash Blues

This was one of the last of Langston Hughes' protest poems before his death in 1967. The backlash is the white racist reaction to the US civil rights movement which began around 1964 with increased racist attacks on blacks in the US, the war in Vietnam and the subsequent diminishing of prospects for fairer society for the American poor. Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was born in Missouri and grew up in Kansas. Despite his often lonely childhood, a dislocated family and the experience of racist contempt, he became an internationally renowned writer, one of the leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s. The Backlash Blues was made into a song, sung by Nina Simone.



The Backlash Blues
by Langston Hughes

Mister Backlash, Mister Backlash,
Just who do you think I am?
You raise my taxes, freeze my wages,
Send my son to Vietnam.

You give me second class houses,
Second class schools.
Do you think that colored folks
Are just second class fools?

When I try to find a job
To earn a little cash,
All you got to offer
Is a white backlash.

But the world is big,
Big and bright and round--
And it's full of folks like me who are
Black, Yellow, Beige, and Brown.

Mister Backlash, Mister Backlash,
What do you think I got to lose?
I'm gonna leave you, Mister Backlash,
Singing your mean old backlash blues.

You're the one
Will have the blues.
not me--
Wait and see!