Slicer doesn't pretend to know the detail of what lies behind the Arab Spring, but he does recognise oppression (at least some of the time). And few could have missed the changes sweeping through the Middle East as people have arisen to throw off the oppression of brutal dictatorships.
The King of Jordan has stuck his neck out further than most:
The West can hardly be considered blameless historically with regard to oppression within its own borders, and in the role it has played beyond them - including in its handling of affairs with various Arab nations - so Slicer's not going to get all self-righteous here. However, he sees fit to get behind the underdog (of an oppressed people); to applaud the Arab League for its public stance; and to mark the latest developments with respect to Syria with a little music. We have seen oppression before (!) so, unsurprisingly, there is a stock of fine music from which to draw a few examples.
Dylan's writing in the 1960's was beloved by the Civil Rights Movement in America. Chimes of Freedom is one such example. Here The Boss, rather than the Mighty Zim, leads a fine bunch of musos in this anthemic version. The quality is neither in the video, nor in the audio recording (there are several dropouts), but in the writing, the feeling and the empathising:
There really was a thing about sleeveless shirts, hairy armpits and upper limb musculature at live gigs then....
The Boss has a great song or two up his (sleeveless) sleeves too, and the first 2 lines of Chimes of Freedom (1964) remind Slicer of one of them, Thunder Road, from 1975:
"You can hide 'neath your covers and study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain for a saviour to rise from these streets
Well now I'm no hero, that's understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey what else can we do now...?"
Slicer wanted to post a little sample lyric from Chimes here but, when he tried to select one, he was forced to conclude that to do so would break the poetic genius of its completeness - which is a tour de force of solidarity and liberation. So here it is in all its wrecking ball glory. Lyric writers of today read and weep:
Far between sundown’s finish an’ midnight’s broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
An’ for each an’ ev’ry underdog soldier in the night
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
In the city’s melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden while the walls were tightening
As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin’ rain
Dissolved into the bells of the lightning
Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned an’ forsaked
Tolling for the outcast, burnin’ constantly at stake
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
An’ the unpawned painter behind beyond his rightful time
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For the disrobed faceless forms of no position
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken-for-granted situations
Tolling for the deaf an’ blind, tolling for the mute
Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased an’ cheated by pursuit
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Just as Slicer has acknowledged limited insight into the Arab Spring, maybe we can all sometimes fail to see oppression on our own doorstep (or oppression we're complicit in on someone else's). Maybe we should work a bit at raising our ability to spot it, taking the log out of our own eye first. Maybe we need to set our mind more actively on freedom:
If that sounds like too tall an order, at least we can encourage those who are struggling under oppressive regimes:
It's not the first time that Damascus has been associated with change, and liberation of the spirit.
Great post, Slicer. I especially enjoyed the Bruce et al clip! And the final cryptic comment!
Posted by: Gary Burnett | 12/05/2011 at 01:15 PM