I was driving around recently, listening to the Dubliners. I like the Dubliners because they can sing the glories of good beer in one song and about serious events of history in another. When I was a kid living in Gettysburg, PA we used to sing old Civil War songs. I've forgotten most of them, but I do remember how they made me feel and the things they made me think about. I wanted to be there, among the canteens and cannons, to sing during the long marches, to fire at those stinkin' slaveholding confederates. You can get places with music that detailed history books can't.
While I was driving a song came on called, "James Larkin" (of whom you can learn all about somewhere else, maybe Wikipedia for a start). This is the line that caught my attention:
And last of all of the seven heroes
I'll sing the praise of James Connolly
The voice of justice the voice of freedom
He gave his life that men might be free
We have no heroes today. Even with all of the blatantly stupid shit going on with our country, there is no one to stand out, to stand up, to lead us all against the tyranny. Yesterday, our president stood in front of the TV cameras and told the world that he broke the law; there was no apology, no remorse and no plan to cease. A little bit more of our national dignity was flushed down the toilet.
So who is it going to be? Who is going to be the one to shout, "ENOUGH!" and take our country back? Are we ready for this? What songs are our grandchildren going to sing?
To go back to the title of the post, I'm not a poet. Dave King of Flogging Molly certainly is, however. What took me four rambling paragraphs to spit out, he summed up in one line, all the while invoking romanticized visions of pirates, Joe Strummer, and merry bands of freedom fighters with their fists in the air, struggling to their last breath for truth and justice. For you. For me.
Oh, and the next line? "Grapplin' with their demons in the search for liberty."
THIS is the shit that keeps me up at night.
5 comments:
I’m an oaf myself… I have no answers to political questions… Heroes today? Forget it. Everybody’s too worried about being Politically Freaking Correct !
But I do love Flogging Molly.
I am in fact listening to the Pogues right now! How bout that. :)
Pogues are great, Dubliners, Chieftans...and if you get the chance to hear Sinead O'Conner's version of "The Foggy Dew" AAAH!
There are heroes Sara... but we keep assassinating them... and then there are the heroes we will not hear about in ourlifetime... but that does not mean they do not exist.
The likes of Ralph Nader, maybe...but so many very ordinary people are heroes, no songs are sung about them but they allow a small circle of compassion to grow around them, allow children to grow without cruelty and with empathy for their feelings... each one of these small people, the ambos who drag injured people out of the car wrecks and treat them with kindness so they are not alone... real heroes are everywhere and we will one day hear songs and poems about them.
I guess I meant "heroic leaders" rather than just plain ol' heroes. I've met my share of heroes in this world - people who risked life and limb for someone else for little or no reason. I've known people who struggle everyday for one or two other people (I like to call these folks "mom").
I hope you're right though that one day we will hear songs and poems about them. James Connolly was executed in Dublin after the Easter Rising... shot in his chair, as he was too badly wounded to stand. Now, as it's recognized that their actions spurred the movement for Irish independence, they're regarded as heroes, but at the time they were not. Of course, that is to believe Wikipedia, which had some rather tame things to say about Oliver Cromwell and mentioned nothing of his sending tens of thousands of Irish people to slavery or indentured servitude in the Barbados.
But I hope one day to hear songs and poems about the people in the early 21st century who made enough of a difference to stop this seemingly downward spiral. In fact, I can't wait.
Me too! Me too!
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