Just another music thread.

Same vintage.
Dave Edmunds.
A good time in Brit pop.:

If we see its posstive aspect than its very much necessary in daily life but as we think about its drawback than its one of the bad things.

Hello, Kelly, & welcome to A2k.

Should you feel the desire to post some of your favourite music clips here, you are most welcome to!

Yep, I'm sure YouTube has its pluses & minuses.
Right now I'm enjoying the pluses more, though.

One of the most disappointing things, looking back over this thread on the weekend, was that quite a number of posted clips have been removed, due to copyright issues. Damn.

Amongst them, the Easybeats' Friday On My Mind.:

I have to fix this sad state of affairs right now!

The Easies again:
She's So Fine.
(Including the ear-piercing (ouch, ouch!) screaming girls!):

One last one, before I get back to work ...

Sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry ...
Check out those go-go dancers! :

littlek's Leonard Cohen thread has inspired a fresh outbreak of LC listening at my place.
I felt tempted to post a number of these clips to her thread, but thought it might be a bit much. So I'll post them here instead.

I love this! :

Another fave Leonard.
Wouldn't you love to be half as cool in your mid-70s?
How does he do it?:

(sigh)

One last one:

Sneaking one more in.

Can't help myself.

A thoroughly miserable cold, wet & windy day today. The sort of grey, melancholy day that Melbourne specializes in, in darkest winter. So I've been cooped up here for most of the day (canceled the planned walk with my friend, canceled lunch, canceled everything ...)
Anyway this afternoon I've been listening to music (while doing quite a few other things at the same time). I felt inspired to listen to Eric Bogle again ( for the first time in ages) after I came across a reference to him on another A2K music thread yesterday ... that inspired a fresh listen today.
He's still as good as ever, I see!

Eric wrote some some of the most wonderful songs about Oz I know of. What you'd call classics. Not bad for a Scotsman who emigrated here in 1969! I'll post a few here, maybe not all in one sitting & I'll include the words. He's a story teller as much as a musician.

This one's a favourite. An old farmer ("cockie" ) singing about his life.:



NOW I'M EASY
For nearly sixty years, I've been a Cockie
Of droughts and fires and floods I've lived through plenty
This country's dust and mud have seen my tears and blood
But it's nearly over now, and now I'm easy

I married a fine girl when I was twenty
But she died in giving birth when she was thirty
No flying doctor then, just a gentle old black 'gin
But it's nearly over now, and now I'm easy

She left me with two sons and a daughter
On a bone-dry farm whose soil cried out for water
So my care was rough and ready, but they grew up fine and steady
But it's nearly over now, and now I'm easy

My daughter married young, and went her own way
My sons lie buried by the Burma Railway
So on this land I've made me home, I've carried on alone
But it's nearly over now, and now I'm easy

City folks these days despise the Cockie
Say with subsidies and dole, we've had it easy
But there's no drought or starving stock on a sewered suburban block
But it's nearly over now, and now I'm easy

For nearly sixty years, I've been a Cockie
Of droughts and fires and floods, I've lived through plenty
This country's dust and mud, have seen my tears and blood
But it's nearly over now, and now I'm easy
And now I'm easy

NOTES:
Cockie: Australian small-scale family farmer
'Gin ("Jen"): an Australian aboriginal woman
(The term is nowadays considered to be derogatory)

One of Eric's many gentle & melancholy songs about the futility of war. This one, like a number of others, is about the first world war. :



No Man's Land

Well, how do you do, Private William McBride,
Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside?
And rest for awhile in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done.
And I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916,
Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?
Did they Beat the drum slowly, did the play the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fir o'er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sound The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?
And, though you died back in 1916,
To that loyal heart are you always 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

The sun's shining down on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that's still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.

And I can't help but wonder, no Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you 'The Cause?'
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

`

Unfortunately this was the only live Eric Bogle performance I could find.
War & goodbyes to loved ones. <sigh> :



Leaving Nancy

In comes the train and the whole platform shakes
It stops with a shudder and a screaming of brakes
The parting has come and my weary soul aches
I'm leaving my Nancy, oh

But you stand there so calmly determinedly gay
You talk of the weather and events of the day
And your eyes tell me all that your tongue doesn't say
Goodbye my Nancy, oh

And come a little closer
Put your head upon my shoulder
And let me hold you one last time
Before the whistle blows

My suitcase is lifted and stowed on the train
And a thousand regrets whirl around in my brain
The ache in my heart is a black sea of pain
I'm leaving my Nancy, oh

But you stand there beside me so lovely to see
The grip of your hand is an unspoken plea
You're not fooling yourself and you're not fooling me
Goodbye my Nancy, oh

And come a little closer
Put your head upon my shoulder
And let me hold you one last time
Before the whistle blows

But our time has run out and the whistle has blown
Here I must leave you standing alone
We had so little time and now the time's gone
Goodbye my Nancy, oh

And as the train starts gently to roll
And as I lean out to wave and to call
I see the first tears trickle and fall
Goodbye my Nancy, oh

And come a little closer
Put your head upon my shoulder
And let me hold you one last time
Before the whistle blows
And let me hold you one last time
Before the whistle blows

`

This one, of course needs no introduction. It's famous. One of the most powerful & poignant songs about the futility of war out there ...

I've heard so many great versions of this song, from so many talented musicians from all over the world ... but to me this is the version. Why? because Eric wrote it. And he wrote it about & for Australians. It never fails to move me deeply, no matter how many times I've heard it before. :



And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

When I was a young man I carried me pack
And I lived the free life of the rover
From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over
Then in 1915 my country said: Son,
It's time to stop rambling, there's work to be done
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
When the ship pulled away from the quay
And amid all the tears, flag waving and cheers
We sailed off for Gallipoli

It well I remember that terrible day
When our blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that hell they call Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter
Johnny Turk, he was ready, he primed himself well
He rained us with bullets, and he showered us with shell
And in five minutes flat, we were all blown to hell
He nearly blew us back home to Australia

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
When we stopped to bury our slain
Well we buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then it started all over again

Oh those that were living just tried to survive
In that mad world of blood, death and fire
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
While around me the corpses piled higher
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head
And when I awoke in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, I wished I was dead
I never knew there was worse things than dying

Oh no more I'll go Waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and near
For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me

They collected the wounded, the crippled, the maimed
And they shipped us back home to Australia
The armless, the legless, the blind and the insane
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla
And when the ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where me legs used to be
And thank Christ there was no one there waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity

And the Band played Waltzing Matilda
When they carried us down the gangway
Oh nobody cheered, they just stood there and stared
Then they turned all their faces away

Now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
I see my old comrades, how proudly they march
Renewing their dreams of past glories
I see the old men all tired, stiff and worn
Those weary old heroes of a forgotten war
And the young people ask "What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question

And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men still answer the call
But year after year, their numbers get fewer
Someday, no one will march there at all

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billabong
So who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?

`

<honk, sniffle>
And the Band Played ... makes me cry, just about every single time I sit & listen closely to the words. No, not nationalism, or anything like that .... well, you know!

BUT ... just in case you thought Eric was only about deep melancholia ... it really isn't so!

I am kinda ambivalent about this song ... for obvious reasons!

Midnight Oil & a bit of classic Oz rock
The big, bald fellow up front is Peter Garrett, now a member of our federal government ... & also now the subject of much unkind parody & snide criticism.
Which is kind of sad, really. You shoulda stayed out of conventional politics, Peter.

More Oils:

(If he'd lived to see the day) John Lennon would have been 70 years old today (Oz time. Tomorrow for most of you.)

So happy birthday, John.
Thanks for the music & thanks for the wonderful memories. :

Video from today's Sydney Morning Herald.
The title is a bit of a beat-up, but never mind. Some good footage included. (please excuse the fragrance ad at the start.) :


http://media.smh.com.au/entertainment/red-carpet/fbi-wants-slice-of-lennons-70th-1975723.html?from=newsbox

Yusuf Islam, when he was Cat Stevens, a long, long time ago ...
Longer Boats, from Tea For The Tillerman.
(Haven't played this stuff for years! Rather nice. :