southbrishammer wrote: ↑Tue Oct 11, 2022 6:52 pm
I was thinking of this song today as well, and wondering whether the lyrics would still be seen as politically correct, or are they racial stereotyping?
Had an exchange with Cuenca about this, cos I KNOW that there is a version around that is a bit mucky "Hans play with Willy, Willy is happy again" (geddit!) and also defo says "Whistling tunes we piss on the coons in the Jungle"
Given Pete's rep, that last was 'realist' rather than 'racist'. Referring to a willingness to use military on poorer countries.
A sixteen minute Steve Miller Band tune from 1981 called Macho City? That's got to be pretentious, self-indulgent wankery, right?
Well actually, it's atmospheric, understated, almost ambient brilliance. I remember hearing this, in full, on Annie Nightingale's Radio One show and being blown away. I still am today.
Last edited by southbrishammer on Thu Nov 03, 2022 11:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The Great Leap Forward was/is the solo project of Alan Brown from Big Flame. This track is from 1987, recorded on a 4 track in his bedroom.
The lyrics........show that not much has changed, really:
Honey Dear, if the sun is in your eyes,
I’ll steal the shade to keep the staple things in life ‑
There are many up here who think its over,
Choking on their beer as it instigates tears: low and Be-Holed.
Honey Dear, when the country’s undermined,
There’s a moral duty to smash the steel behind that complacent smile…
Well, staring into your beer won’t make the weather clear – no no no !
Honey Dear, what’s to be done, it can be done!
I’d gladly sell your begging bowl
To put a brick in the mouth that grates on and on.
Honey Dear, take the sticks and stones with the froth and the foam,
Cornered beasts would do anything to keep control and everything they own.
There are many down here rolling in clover –
Skimming the cream off the Monetarist Dream and auctioning off the left-overs.
Honey Dear, we will get what we deserve:
Slaughtered daughters, castrated sons if we haven’t the nerve to pull a fast one, for
Honey Dear, there’s an Achilles Heel to the strong:
It’s called insolence, pride and arrogance,
And a crass belief that “We is never, never wrong.”
Where are the many thinking it over?
Stepping up a gear out of the Bondage of Fear?
Brollies to the fore, girls!
I can’t hear the thunder but I can feel the rain,
So do we just talk about the weather, merely hope it gets better?
No, no no!
The Great Leap Forward were also, to the best of my knowledge, the only group who ever wrote a song about the Common Agricultural Policy (If The CAP'S Flat, Waive It).
Korea Hammer wrote: ↑Tue Nov 08, 2022 11:26 am
The Great Leap Forward were also, to the best of my knowledge, the only group who ever wrote a song about the Common Agricultural Policy (If The CAP'S Flat, Waive It).
The 2012 album This Is Our Decade Of Living Cheaply And Getting By seems awful prescient.
