I'm mostly an upbeat person but today was one of those off days. Gray, gloomy, and cold, the winds of winter setting upon me and sinking into my soul. The days are getting shorter and shorter. I couldn't get to sleep last night and wound up watching television to the wee hours. That left me tired and grumpy all day. These are the days I obsess about the declining political, social, and environmental climates.
Tonight I suddenly thought of a group from the 1960's, a hangover from the Beat Era, the Village Fugs. (Still performing, they have a website: www.thefugs.com ) I had their first album, but the only song I remember was a precursor to hip hop, shouted out rather than sung. It was “Nothing”.
“Monday nothing, Tuesday nothing, Wednesday and Thursday nothing, Friday for a change, a little more nothing, Saturday once more nothing.”
Then they went on to chant about everything that was meaningless.
“Poetry nothing, music nothing, thinking and dancing nothing. The world’s great books, a great set of nothing.”
“Poetry nothing, music nothing, thinking and dancing nothing. The world’s great books, a great set of nothing.”
And then the political figures of the day: “Stevenson nothing, Humphrey nothing, Averell Harriman nothing. John Stuart Mill nill-nill, Franklin Delano Nothing. Carlos Marx nothing, Engels nothing, Bakunin Kropotkin — nyuthing! Leon Trotsky, lots of nothing. Stalin less than nothing!”
“Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, a whole lot of, a whole lot of nothing. Nothing, lots and lots of nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.”
It's been a long time since the 1960's, but you, know, there's still a lot of nothing around.
I think it's time to start taking St. John's wort again.
You can listen to "Nothing" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HmJX11_AQE
No comments:
Post a Comment