This Land ~ rewritten

Ok ~ Jim Page, Seattle wordsmith & troubador re-wrote "This land is your land" to update it to current times. Page is described as "Folk Music with Teeth". Yea!

Song kicks in @ 3 minutes...



he sings it kind of fast, so here are the lyrics....

This Land come gather round me, hear my sad story I know you think you've heard some one sing it before me but it's an old song, I had to change it times ain't what they used to be as I went walking that super highway below the gray haze and sooted skyway I was arrested for hitch hiking on the freeway they said it don't belong to me it ain't my land and it ain't your land could be a rich land but it's a poor land 'cause of the few that hold it in their tight-gripped hand so that it don't belong to you or me when I was younger and in my schooling I learned and followed by all the rulings I never dreamed that they were only fooling how could my teachers lie to me ? but as time passed and I grew older and the world around me got a little colder I heard a voice came calling at my shoulder said it don't belong to you or me it ain't my land and it ain't your land could be a rich land but it's a poor land 'cause of the few that hold it in their tight-gripped hand so that it don't belong to you or me from the board rooms of corporations to the back roads of desperate situations it's a confused and dis-united nation all the way from sea to shining sea from the urban war zones of the busted street lights to the toxic waste lands of Nevada Test Sites from the open strip mines to the clear cut forests oh it's a sad sight to see I see the downsize, I see the layoffs the corporate welfare, politician's payoffs I see the breadlines that never make the headlines 'cause they're no so entertaining on TV when they can reduce you to just a number when they can knock you down and they can plow you under and when the only thing that matters is the dollar then you know it don't belong to you or me it ain't my land and it ain't your land could be a rich land but it's a poor land 'cause of the few that hold it in their tight-gripped hand so that it don't belong to you or me there was a time when this song was greater but that was then, and this is later and there's a hole in my heart that's like a crater and they say it's gonna be the death of me let's take this song back, let's take this country take back our future, it's our duty let's stand up tall so that everyone can see then this land will belong to you and me and it will be your land and it will be my land from California to the New York Island from the redwood forests to the gulf stream waters this land will belong to you and me

It's alright Ma

"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)"

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fools gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proved to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.

Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you'd just be
One more person crying.

So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to you ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their marks
Made everything from toy guns that sparks
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the President of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.

An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.

Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.

You loose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand without nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not forget 
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despite their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platforms ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God Bless him.

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.

Old lady judges, watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony.

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes
Must get lonely.

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me ?
And if my thought-dreams could been seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.

http://www.jango.com/music/Bob+Dylan?l=0

Notes from a field afar...

As you can see, I have been posting less & less. Lots going on & the Blogging format of social networking is kind of fading out. I did finally succumb to the Facebook format, which has it's pros & cons. I do have a newish job, as of November, and there have been some changes that are even more demanding (is that possible??).  So I am trying to find the balance. That's my excuse & I am sticking with it!
I have also discovered Oregon has a whole slew of Lavender farms & has a Lavender festival, where farms that grow Lavender, that might not otherwise be open to the public, are open for this Festival all up & down the Willamette Valley from Portland to Springfield.
I have discovered Lavender Essential oil, the pure distilled "liquid gold" & its Aromatherapy attributes.
Mmmm that stuff smells good. Also discovered the bees love it... so when I stepped out into a field to snap a picture.... each plant had a bunch of honeybees, x hundreds of plants, you could actually hear a collective hummmmm of all the bees. Never experienced such a thing before.  With all the news about bees suffering from pesticides & GMO crops, it was even nicer to find a "bee friendly" farming operation.

Too bad blogger does not offer a scratch & sniff (click & sniff?) feature, or I'd give you a whiff of the wonderful essential oil.

Keep the peace! Keep on keeping on.

NSA

Lives in the balance

Historical Reference