And when these fingers can strum no longer…

I got to the JRS office in Beirut at 8:30 Tuesday to start my day only to see that Pete Seeger had passed away. We all knew he wouldn't live forever, although all lovers of music and peace and 3-part harmonies hoped he would; no one, no group of people can fill the space that Pete leaves, although he tried his entire life to get us to.



It's hard to put into words what Pete did for the world through his music; his most popular songs weren't often written by him- The Seeger Sessions, Bruce Springsteen's folk tribute doesn't contain music by Pete. But he rather chose songs, plucked them from all over the world and delivered them to us, like spreading "We Shall Overcome" through the Union movements to the Civil Rights
movement.



One example, that I think ties up Pete into a nice little bow is the song "How Can I keep From Singing," a hymn written in 1868 by Robert Wadsworth Lowry. 
Originally strictly a church song packed with "thou"s and "God"s it was retooled as a folk song in the early l950s.



The refrain went from "Since Christ is Lord of heaven and Earth, how can I keep from singing?" to the version we know now, "Since LOVE is LORD of heaven and Earth, how can I keep from singing?" Pete heard this new version and ran with it, singing it at protests and folk gatherings all over the country.

So why does this sum him up to me? Because Pete believed in the accessibility of the spirit. That is, once this song had been stripped of it's religious phrasing that would alienate people, and replaced it with universal language saying essentially the same thing, he shared it with the world, because he wanted to bring us out of our small boxes and bring us together in the wider human community. Pete Seeger didn't stand on the side of the road holding a sign about stopping this war or that war, he stood on the highway holding up a sign that said "Peace", an idea that unites rather than separates.





So now Pete is gone, only a few months after his wife of 70 years, and it's our turn to live by his example. We, the next generation have to continue his work for peace and ecology and love. Pete said there is only a 50/50 chance humans will survive the next 100 years. I'll take those odds.


Here’s the big ask: think of one thing YOU can do this week to prove that Pete's message will keep going.



"And when these fingers Can Strum no longer, hand the old banjo to young ones stronger."

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Feel free to read my other blogs about Pete here:

January 2011 – Pete Seeger, As Always, Thanks

August 2012 – Getting a Tattoo on A Thai Island, Check

August 2012 – Quite Early Morning

November 2010 – Pete Seeger Saves My Sanity

June 2009 – My New Favorite Thing

What do you mean Millenials don't like Bruce Springsteen?

According to the Internet, which always tells the truth, my peers don't like Bruce Springsteen. Well, maybe not my peers, but "Millenials." Certainly I'm not one of them, because I was called "old" the other day.

Of the two times I saw Bruce this summer, I had to buy my friends' tickets because they didn't consider him worth paying for.

Listen, my too young friends. I know. I listen to some music that's a bit dated. I don't expect you all to be interested in the genius early country yodels of Jimmie Rodgers (although you really should be). And I know I can only get some of you interested in the music of Blind Willie Johnson if I quote line for line the West Wing scene about him, and pretend I'm coming up with it on the spot. Maybe old 1920's x-rated 78s aren't your thing. I get it.

BUT BRUCE ISN'T OLD MUSIC. 

He's still doing 4-hour live shows, crowd surfing, and more importantly, he's still writing kick-ass, angry, tear at your clothes rock and roll. Besides, it's not like you've never listened to music that was written before you were born. Did you ever lie in bed in high school listening to "Wouldn't It Be Nice" by the Beach Boys wishing you could be lying next to your boyfriend or girlfriend? Yes you did. Don't lie. Well, you should have been listening to "I'm on Fire," because bets are, that song speaks more to what you were feeling than the Beach Boys. 

I'm talking about sex… just in case you Millenials don't even bother to look up the lyrics. You're probably all too busy reading 50 other tabs and starting your own business… or blogging.

I don't need to defend Bruce. I'll let his music do that. 

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Top seven Bruce songs young people need to hear. I say "young" even though someone called me old the other day… did I mention that yet? So let's just say, these are the songs for people who still feel young, confused and angry. 


1. I'm on Fire – Ok. This is pretty much the sexiest song I've ever heard. It throbs and sighs better than anything you've got. It's only four verses, and that's all it needs. Because when you're in the state that Bruce is in, you can't think hard enough to write more.

"At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
And a freight train running through the
Middle of my head
Only you can cool my desire
Im on fire"
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2. Ghost of Tom Joad – Are pissed off that we elected a president who turned out to be politician? Are you angry that people are still sleeping on the streets? Can you believe that banks are still taking people's homes? So was Steinbeck when he wrote Grapes of Wrath. And more sickening is that that book written in 1939 could have been written last year. So Bruce is looking for Tom Joad from that book in all of sadness of modern day. Where is our working man's hero? 

"Got a one-way ticket to the promised land 
You got a hole in your belly and gun in your hand 
Sleepin' on a pillow of solid rock 
Bathin' in the city aqueduct"

As he says before introducing Tom Morello in the video above, "If Woody Guthrie were alive today he'd have a lot to say about high times on Wall Street and low times on Main Street."

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3. Thunder Road (live) – This has been my favorite Bruce song ever since my old friend Bob Al-Greene put it on a mix for me back in the day. Maybe because it felt like we were living a Bruce song, driving along highways until the sun came up, listing to music. But this song, for me, is the anthem for something new. I've dated a few people in my day, and this is the song where you meet someone new and think, "Maybe this time it'll be like a dream. Maybe this time I'll be the person I want to be." And just like the Bruce song, the battle between fantasy and reality finishes with reality winning, and I am who I've always been and the person I'm looking at is just a person too. But we keep fighting, or in Bruce Springsteen terms, we keep driving.

Roy orbison singing for the lonely
Hey that's me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again
Don't run back inside
Darling you know just what Im here for
So you're scared and you're thinking
That maybe we aint that young anymore
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4. Death to Our Hometown – Getting to see Bruce Springsteen on his Wrecking Ball(no, not that Wrecking Ball...) tour this year was wonderful, especially seeing him sing this. People say protest rock is dead. Maybe as a genre it's gone, but if this song isn't a protest, I don't know what is.

So listen up, my Sonny boy 
Be ready for when they come 
For they’ll be returning sure as the rising sun 
Now get yourself a song to sing and sing it ’til you’re done 
Yeah, sing it hard and sing it well 
Send the robber baron’s straight to hell 
The greedy thieves that came around 
And ate the flesh of everything they’ve found 
Whose crimes have gone unpunished now 
Walk the streets as free men now
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5. Dancing in the Dark – Sitting in Omaha (or New Jersey, for Bruce) feeling stuck. You don't want to be here anymore – here in town, here in your body, here with your friends, here with your job. Maybe love will solve it. Or lust, at least. 

I get up in the evening, and I ain't got nothing to say 
I come home in the moring, I go to bed feeling the same way 
I ain't nothing but tired, man I'm just tired and bored with myself 
Hey there baby, I could use just a little help

I check my look in the mirror wanna change my clothes my hair my face 
Man I ain't getting nowhere I'm just livin in a dump like this 
There's something happening somewhere baby I just know that there is

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6.  The River – This one can only be listened to live, with the introduction. Tales of Bruce hiding from the cold in a phone booth, talking to his girlfriend for hours, looking for any reason not to go home to his parents' house.

But I remember us riding in my brothers car
Her body tan and wet down at the reservoir
At night on them banks I'd lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she'd take
Now those memories come back to haunt me, they haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true
Or is it something worse that sends me
Down to the river though I know the river is dry

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7.  Born in the USA – Ok people, clearly this is the most misunderstood Springsteen song of all time. I'd recommend clicking on the title and reading the lyrics. As Bruce puts it himself, it's a song about, "spiritual crisis, in which man is left lost...It's like he has nothing left to tie him into society anymore. He's isolated from the government. Isolated from his family...to the point where nothing makes sense." I think we can all relate to that.

Got in a little hometown jam 
So they put a rifle in my hand 
Sent me off to a foreign land 
To go and kill the yellow man

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So there's the top seven. Let me know if you need another 50. 

Moment to moment reaction's of Miley Cyrus's new Wrecking Ball video

My homepage is the Guardian's music page, and when I turned on my computer this morning, there was Miley Cyrus's teary-eyed face looking back at me. I don't know her music, and I didn't get around to seeing her twerking video because our bandwidth costs a lot of money in Johannesburg and I couldn't justify that expense. But as I was reading an article about this video, I saw it got like 14 million hits in a day. By the time I started writing this it had already received 45 million hits.

So, to justify spending my time watching this video, here are my thoughts in blog form, shot for shot. Why would you care about my opinion of a video by a gal whose music I've never heard, whose old TV shows and movies I've never seen, who knows less about modern pop music than all of my peers? Because this is an unbiased opinion. I am a Miley Cyrus tabula rasa.

Without further ado, Miley Cyrus's new Wrecking Ball video...

0:00 Does she have my hair cut? Oh God, please don't let me relate to her. Well, she's not EXACTLY like me. Maybe I've already spent too much time in South Africa, but one of her eyes is bigger than the other. I think she might be transforming into a prawn.

0:24 Whoa. Powerful shot. Dead on, well lit, crying into the camera. Please, please don't let me like this song. Miley, I don't want to humanize you!

0:42 Is this all the critics were complaining about? She's not the first singer to go for the sexy-butchy look. she's not the first teen idol to prance around in her underwear. It's not like she's remaking "Showgirls" or something.

0:43 Nope, spoke too soon. That's a topless Miley. And tattoos... and are those Flo-Jo fingernails?

0:50 Still, the song isn't that bad, and my tender innocent eyes aren't offended as they should be, according to what everyone is saying online.

1:04 Uhhhhhh ok. Less hip lesbian, more pin-up girl. Thank God you're legal. As my roomie Patrick Keaveny would say, or the dudes from Workaholics, "Sweetie, have you eaten today?"

1:05 Damn, this song is catchy. Fight it... FIGHT IT...

1:14 Ohhhh

1:23 Uhhhhhh? Ok ok, Miley. We've all done things with household objects we shouldn't. I burned a lot of my hair when roasting marshmallows over a candle when I was like 10. But you're 20, and you're on camera.

1:28 Ohhhhh no...

1:49 Well, I officially apologize to all of the SJs who have been reading this. I say in my defence, this is the most viewed video on YouTube today, so I'm not the only one writing about this. I was not expecting the naked mid-90s sad lesbian construction worker motif to go so wrong.

2:18 It seems like you're just reusing footage now... Already saw the Flo-Jo nails.

2:59. Definitely reusing footage. I've already seen her get intimate with a sledge hammer. Not to say that it wasn't delightful the first time, but please leave us wanting more...

3:09 Seriously, did you not shoot enough b-roll to cover a 3-minute music video? We've seen her swinging naked from a wrecking ball a few times now. We get it, it's a metaphor. Deep.

Well, I hate to say it, this over-nudified, under-written song is pretty catchy. The trick, Miley, is to now get people to enjoy your music with your clothes on.

In the end, it's not great, but it's not worth tearing apart a 20-year old for either. I will say this, there is only one Wrecking Ball. And it's owned by The Boss.

Ok. My first Cyrus experience. That's three minutes I can't get back.

36 Hours in Paris Part Two: The Church of Bruce Springsteen

This doesn't actually start in Paris. This starts with a breakup, which is pretty fitting for a blog about Bruce.

I got dumped. And I wanted to see Bruce Springsteen with this guy in London. How lovely would it be to hear "Fire" or even "Dancing in the Dark" with your special someone's arms wrapped around you? Well, I'll never know.

So I had two choices. Wallow in my Rome apartment, crying when I would read reviews of Bruce shows around Europe. Or, pack my suitcase, buy tickets, and wrap myself in 40,000 voices singing along to great breakup songs like "You're Missing."

That's how I wound up in Milan, screaming and crying in my nose-bleed seats. And that's how I ended up buying tickets to see him again in Paris last weekend. I talked my two friends from India, Andy and Nastasia into coming along for their first Bruce experience.

We all got off at different metros, not knowing how to find each other. I kept saying, "Find the beer tent that is blasting Bruce Springsteen." Well, there are dozens of those. Eventually we met at the gate, celebrated our reunion outside, Andy lost his deodorant in the frisking at the gate, and we made it to our seats.

But I made a pretty bad mistake. I bought great seats. The best I could get at last minute. First tier, north side of the stadium. And I was so happy about the wonderful seats, that I planned on enjoying them.

My two friends and I got beers, then more beers. We danced and jumped and laughed and took a million photos. Enough to the point that the upper middle class old people surrounding us found us to be pretty bothersome.

At one point, Bruce broke into "Pay Me My Money Down", arguably one of his most fun songs to sing and dance around to. So I did. And the guy behind me waved his finger at me like, "no, no, no, young lady..." Now, I don't speak a lot of French, but rather than ignoring him I should have turned around and yelled, "Est-ce que vous me comprenez rock n' roll?"

The night went on. The sun began setting. He played Little Richard's "Lucille" and a bunch of stuff from "Wrecking Ball," not to mention the entire "Born in the USA" album cover to cover. He killed it, and killed me with "Thunder Road."



And then it was over. And we stumbled from the stadium, trying to find a Metro back to Central Paris, the whole time practicing our French. "Nastasia, Nastasia, how do you say, 'the cat is under the table?' How do you say, 'the mice do not like the shower?'"

She told us that we would never have to use those sentences. And low and belhold, the next morning, enjoying our hangover Croque Monsieurs in a side-street café near the cemetery, what did we see? Le chat est sur la table.