|
|
THE TRUTH (is not for sale)
FREE DOWNLOAD HERE DATSON Released on the eve of the War in Iraq WORDS & MUSIC © Geoffrey Datson 2003 PRODUCER Geoffrey Datson Engineered by Matt Redall at stickylabel studio The Last Night (WORDS © Hughes) Hafiz (Hughes and trans Soltany Zand, and Hafiz). community announcement by PROTEST SINGER THE TRUTH IS NOT FOR SALE Unfortunately I don't have $30K to take out an ad in the Australian; there's no time to go through the normal channels with a record deal and popular air play - and let's face it, the advertisers and global music conglomerates aren't going to be encouraging what I have to say: TROOPS OUT OF IRAQ. With free coke and fries? Yeah, right. So I'm giving my work away - for no wages, or royalties, no money changing hands - so there's no GST either! The airwaves should be free to anyone with something important to say and what I have to say is serious. It is not for sale. This work belongs to the people as part of their culture. They have a right to hear it as music is meant to be - communally. This is a community announcement. I am opposed to Australian involvement in the war in Iraq and I want to explain myself, to see if anyone else out there feels the same way. I am an independent voice. I am not funded by the Australia Council and therefore do not have to tow any government line, and I receive no corporate sponsorship. Nobody's on kick-backs or getting a cut. To do so would be profiteering. So I'm sending my songs out on the community airwaves and making my music available as MP3 download. It is my contribution to the groundswell of opposition to the war, to shore up courage and resistance among my fellow citizens who abhor what is being done in our name. Now more than ever we need a common thread to unite the hearts of good people - a soundtrack for the coming struggle to maintain our civil freedoms. Feel free to request download files from us and send them to your friends. Pass it on. Evil prevails when good people do nothing. Thank you very much. 20.03.2003 Protest Singer It is not OK! Don't stay in your homes. Get in the way! LINKS Ruin House was published in Drunken Boat (Issue6) The Last Night is dedicated to Iraqi girl blogger RIVERBEND also check out Salam Pax who blogged throughout the war - the truth is out there. |
Liner notes:
1. Free Radio Australia
Geoffrey Datson, Matt Reddall, Annette Hughes (vocals)
When you tune through the frequencies, you get the frequency squelch as well as the reality squelch happening. A harking back to propaganda broadcasts in wartime, but with a twist.
Free Radio Australia
Forecasting to you
Lifestyle is under attack
From our own fear and guilt
Stubbornly denied
Stop passing the blame to some other guy
Cause they're building a bogeyman
Big as the sky
Like parrots repeating
The leaders aren't leading
Stand around bleating
About terrorists meeting
A lot of people are thinking
We the boat people & democracy sinking
Sound familiar?
Not all the terrorists are Muslims
Sound familiar?
Its not about how well you
do the job but how long
Sound familiar?
For security reasons
This is your radio
Sound familiar?
The Government can scare you too,
for security reasons
Quickly Free trade your country to buy
(a bogey man big as the sky)
Security measures
Sound familiar?
It's not about how well you
do the job but how long
Sound familiar?
It's not about what you think
but what you've got on
Sound familiar?
Free Radio Aussie forecasting to you
We will all be refugees soon
2. Bucefallus
Geoffrey Datson
Alexander the Great had a horse - and if he were Mr Ed, this is what he'd have to say to Alexander Downer.
Bucefallus is my name
and all that that lies before me my domain.
And I can tell you for sure
that your war will be won by no one.
From the high plane to the edge of shimmering sea
all bow down before me.
And without a shadow of doubt
if you are afraid to die then your religion must be a lie.
On whose authority? Tell them from me
you heard it from the horse's mouth,
Buccefallus, steed of Alexander.
And I can tell you for sure
that your war will be won by no one.
3. One is the Sum
Geoffrey Datson, Annette Hughes (vocals).
A chant for the times, echoing the peace marches and the sentiments they embody. It's a mathematics of language.
One is the sum of all things that don't add up.
It’s a perfect square circled by zero.
We could all be there, just for one day.
Earthlings unite in honour, polite, mothers be proud.
But I tend to digress from the math that is best
Count it out loud:
1234 we don't have a use for war
3210 bury guns and not the hero
We all have problems with neighbours and friends
Were her space starts and his space ends
All hate and lies, it’s a bad disguise
Unbecomming of us, it don’t add up
Its time to redress this terrible mess
By counting out loud:
1234 food for all not stupid war
321 naught, how about we use some thought
1234 give us peace not endless war
321 zero, get rid of guns and not your sons.
4. Ruin House
Geoffrey Datson.
Written and recorded in 1996, and now suddenly pertinent, Ruin House quotes Robin Morgan's The Demon Lover, a book on terrorism from the seventies and the ancient Kabbala.
By the ruin house
All the ocean is tears
we are forgiven one by one - that's what it's all about
Once I needed just a small amount of money
Build that rock soled wall around me
but where I'm coming from there's too much loss
it's got to be it's got to be,
got to be, got to be
it's got to be it's got to be - that's what it's all about
By the ruin house
All the ocean is tears
we are forgiven one by one - that's what it's all about
5. Freedom's not Free
Geoffrey Datson, Annette Hughes (vocals)
Written in March 2003 on the occasion of one week of war with Iraq. To quote Salam Pax, 'I won't be wearing an I heart Bush t-shirt!"
Freedom's not free
but you'll not buy it with money.
It takes sweat and blood and toil and time.
To build this thing both yours and mine.
People have died for all our rights.
Don't sell them out for golden lies.
Freedom is not free
and doesn't fit into TV.
It can't be packaged bought or sold.
It doesn't sell cars or cure the cold.
No one is there to take your call
It's make your own and then install.
It comes from bedroom, kitchen and shed,
but first it forms inside the head.
Governed by heart the truth it's said
Will find itself a willing hand
That reason and love might fill the land.
Freedom's not free. Take some quickly
6. Hail Columbia
Geoffrey Datson.
In response to the omen of Columbia going down over a little town in Texas called Palestine, and a train crash in Sydney that killed seven the following day in 2003. Apparently, death is measured by the spectacle, and loss by the cost of conveyance.
Romeo. I'm not down with you as such
A juggernaut that kills for culture
All portentous in the Columbia dawn.
I cannot fit that fashion.
Nor mouth its platitudes.
Juliet how low hangs your balcony, now.
And the message that fails to get through
Is all the more tragic for its non delivery.
Still brother kills brother
and mr president,
everybody' s way of life is negotiable.
Pass the message on.
If a piece of the heavens falls to earth.
A chunk of gods dreaming.
Sits discarded out there.
A puzzle even to crows.
In the far off chrome towers
A stay of execution enshrouds
Our bejewelled city.
The justness of cause or the causes of justness
I doubt you'd slip a leaders IQ between them.
Trains run on time but off the tracks
And a life deftly taken will not come back.
Everybody's way of life is negotiable.
Pass the message on.
Cause and effect; it's a mathematics of language,
The unexpected forever killed by hindsight.
Time to stop leading and start listening.
It's all negotiable.
Pass your life along. They need it over here.
7. The Last Night - dedicated to RIVERBEND
Annette Hughes
Written in response to Anthony O'Neill's novel Sheherazade, and the lines from a poem by Mohsen Soltany Zand. Scheherazade is the framing story of the 1001 Arabian Nights. In order to placate a tyrant and save her life, she invented tales. Substitute the media for Sheherazade, and the meaning gets heavy. 2002
Clear the streets before me, light the oil lamps
And I'll walk naked through your city of a thousand domes.
I can hear the panicked hurry of a thousand frightened feet
And a dulcimer plays high above the fragrance of the street
And a desert wind is blowing in a thousand miles from home.
Famous as a goddess, a beauty in my time
I beguiled a tyrant with the intrigues I devised
Who after just a hundred days fell captive to my lies.
And the source of each new episode that I was forced to tell?
A thousand virgin fairytales heard whispered round the well.
I wove a magic carpet and he flew a thousand miles
Travelled caravans of fantasy into fabled territories
Steeped in tales of ancient glory. I told him what he wanted to hear
The tyrant was a spoilt child who took my lies for truth,
But the truth that he believed was fed on fear.
With every word I told him I hoped to save my life
I courted him cajoled him seeking somehow to control
Now I walk the silent alleys and the torches tell the terror.
Disrobe me now and listen to the drums. He comes,
Slouching towards Bagdad bristling with guns.
And an army of a thousand gormless fools
In saddle-bags of pure invention conceal hypocrisy,
Armour polished with his righteousness and hate.
So here I stand before you, the spinner of the tale.
I settle on my carpet and pray for your forgiveness, if it's not too late.
Shall I tell another story invent another fate?
I am Scheherazade.
8. Hafiz, half mine (Doosh didam)
Mohsen Soltany Zand and Annette Hughes
The first thing Mohsen recorded since being released from 4 years detention in Villawood. He recites an ancient Persian Sufi, Hafiz, over-layed with an english version of the first verse. Recorded the day after the first bombs fell on Baghdad.
Last night, I'll tell you what I saw
Angels tearing down the door
Of all the houses of the dead
They stole the corpses from their beds
And as they bowed their heads to pray
the bodies turned back into clay
and from the clay they fashioned cups
from which to drink their spirits up
1. Free Radio Australia
Geoffrey Datson, Matt Reddall, Annette Hughes (vocals)
When you tune through the frequencies, you get the frequency squelch as well as the reality squelch happening. A harking back to propaganda broadcasts in wartime, but with a twist.
Free Radio Australia
Forecasting to you
Lifestyle is under attack
From our own fear and guilt
Stubbornly denied
Stop passing the blame to some other guy
Cause they're building a bogeyman
Big as the sky
Like parrots repeating
The leaders aren't leading
Stand around bleating
About terrorists meeting
A lot of people are thinking
We the boat people & democracy sinking
Sound familiar?
Not all the terrorists are Muslims
Sound familiar?
Its not about how well you
do the job but how long
Sound familiar?
For security reasons
This is your radio
Sound familiar?
The Government can scare you too,
for security reasons
Quickly Free trade your country to buy
(a bogey man big as the sky)
Security measures
Sound familiar?
It's not about how well you
do the job but how long
Sound familiar?
It's not about what you think
but what you've got on
Sound familiar?
Free Radio Aussie forecasting to you
We will all be refugees soon
2. Bucefallus
Geoffrey Datson
Alexander the Great had a horse - and if he were Mr Ed, this is what he'd have to say to Alexander Downer.
Bucefallus is my name
and all that that lies before me my domain.
And I can tell you for sure
that your war will be won by no one.
From the high plane to the edge of shimmering sea
all bow down before me.
And without a shadow of doubt
if you are afraid to die then your religion must be a lie.
On whose authority? Tell them from me
you heard it from the horse's mouth,
Buccefallus, steed of Alexander.
And I can tell you for sure
that your war will be won by no one.
3. One is the Sum
Geoffrey Datson, Annette Hughes (vocals).
A chant for the times, echoing the peace marches and the sentiments they embody. It's a mathematics of language.
One is the sum of all things that don't add up.
It’s a perfect square circled by zero.
We could all be there, just for one day.
Earthlings unite in honour, polite, mothers be proud.
But I tend to digress from the math that is best
Count it out loud:
1234 we don't have a use for war
3210 bury guns and not the hero
We all have problems with neighbours and friends
Were her space starts and his space ends
All hate and lies, it’s a bad disguise
Unbecomming of us, it don’t add up
Its time to redress this terrible mess
By counting out loud:
1234 food for all not stupid war
321 naught, how about we use some thought
1234 give us peace not endless war
321 zero, get rid of guns and not your sons.
4. Ruin House
Geoffrey Datson.
Written and recorded in 1996, and now suddenly pertinent, Ruin House quotes Robin Morgan's The Demon Lover, a book on terrorism from the seventies and the ancient Kabbala.
By the ruin house
All the ocean is tears
we are forgiven one by one - that's what it's all about
Once I needed just a small amount of money
Build that rock soled wall around me
but where I'm coming from there's too much loss
it's got to be it's got to be,
got to be, got to be
it's got to be it's got to be - that's what it's all about
By the ruin house
All the ocean is tears
we are forgiven one by one - that's what it's all about
5. Freedom's not Free
Geoffrey Datson, Annette Hughes (vocals)
Written in March 2003 on the occasion of one week of war with Iraq. To quote Salam Pax, 'I won't be wearing an I heart Bush t-shirt!"
Freedom's not free
but you'll not buy it with money.
It takes sweat and blood and toil and time.
To build this thing both yours and mine.
People have died for all our rights.
Don't sell them out for golden lies.
Freedom is not free
and doesn't fit into TV.
It can't be packaged bought or sold.
It doesn't sell cars or cure the cold.
No one is there to take your call
It's make your own and then install.
It comes from bedroom, kitchen and shed,
but first it forms inside the head.
Governed by heart the truth it's said
Will find itself a willing hand
That reason and love might fill the land.
Freedom's not free. Take some quickly
6. Hail Columbia
Geoffrey Datson.
In response to the omen of Columbia going down over a little town in Texas called Palestine, and a train crash in Sydney that killed seven the following day in 2003. Apparently, death is measured by the spectacle, and loss by the cost of conveyance.
Romeo. I'm not down with you as such
A juggernaut that kills for culture
All portentous in the Columbia dawn.
I cannot fit that fashion.
Nor mouth its platitudes.
Juliet how low hangs your balcony, now.
And the message that fails to get through
Is all the more tragic for its non delivery.
Still brother kills brother
and mr president,
everybody' s way of life is negotiable.
Pass the message on.
If a piece of the heavens falls to earth.
A chunk of gods dreaming.
Sits discarded out there.
A puzzle even to crows.
In the far off chrome towers
A stay of execution enshrouds
Our bejewelled city.
The justness of cause or the causes of justness
I doubt you'd slip a leaders IQ between them.
Trains run on time but off the tracks
And a life deftly taken will not come back.
Everybody's way of life is negotiable.
Pass the message on.
Cause and effect; it's a mathematics of language,
The unexpected forever killed by hindsight.
Time to stop leading and start listening.
It's all negotiable.
Pass your life along. They need it over here.
7. The Last Night - dedicated to RIVERBEND
Annette Hughes
Written in response to Anthony O'Neill's novel Sheherazade, and the lines from a poem by Mohsen Soltany Zand. Scheherazade is the framing story of the 1001 Arabian Nights. In order to placate a tyrant and save her life, she invented tales. Substitute the media for Sheherazade, and the meaning gets heavy. 2002
Clear the streets before me, light the oil lamps
And I'll walk naked through your city of a thousand domes.
I can hear the panicked hurry of a thousand frightened feet
And a dulcimer plays high above the fragrance of the street
And a desert wind is blowing in a thousand miles from home.
Famous as a goddess, a beauty in my time
I beguiled a tyrant with the intrigues I devised
Who after just a hundred days fell captive to my lies.
And the source of each new episode that I was forced to tell?
A thousand virgin fairytales heard whispered round the well.
I wove a magic carpet and he flew a thousand miles
Travelled caravans of fantasy into fabled territories
Steeped in tales of ancient glory. I told him what he wanted to hear
The tyrant was a spoilt child who took my lies for truth,
But the truth that he believed was fed on fear.
With every word I told him I hoped to save my life
I courted him cajoled him seeking somehow to control
Now I walk the silent alleys and the torches tell the terror.
Disrobe me now and listen to the drums. He comes,
Slouching towards Bagdad bristling with guns.
And an army of a thousand gormless fools
In saddle-bags of pure invention conceal hypocrisy,
Armour polished with his righteousness and hate.
So here I stand before you, the spinner of the tale.
I settle on my carpet and pray for your forgiveness, if it's not too late.
Shall I tell another story invent another fate?
I am Scheherazade.
8. Hafiz, half mine (Doosh didam)
Mohsen Soltany Zand and Annette Hughes
The first thing Mohsen recorded since being released from 4 years detention in Villawood. He recites an ancient Persian Sufi, Hafiz, over-layed with an english version of the first verse. Recorded the day after the first bombs fell on Baghdad.
Last night, I'll tell you what I saw
Angels tearing down the door
Of all the houses of the dead
They stole the corpses from their beds
And as they bowed their heads to pray
the bodies turned back into clay
and from the clay they fashioned cups
from which to drink their spirits up