Today's Playlist

[athelind]

Theme: Ends and Beginnings

• Peter, Paul & Mary: Blowin' in the Wind
  
• Joan Baez: One Tin Soldier
  
• Peter, Paul & Mary: Where Have All The Flowers Gone?
  
• Barry McGuire: Eve of Destruction
  
• R.E.M.: It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)
  
• King Crimson: Epitaph
  
• Apollo 440: (Don't Fear) The Reaper
  
• Mike & The Mechanics: Silent Running
  
• Alan Parsons Project: Nothing Left To Lose
  
• John Lennon: Imagine
  
• Jefferson Starship: Winds of Change
  
• Bob Dylan: The Times They Are A-Changin'
  
• The Fifth Dimension: Age of Aquarius
  
• Peter, Paul & Mary: If I Had A Hammer
  
• Rod Stewart: Faith of the Heart
  
• Pat Benetar: Invincible
  
• Chris Geith: Tomorrow Begins Today
  

Comments

[cynicaloptimist.livejournal.com]

Just to name drop - Paul Carrack of Mike and teh Mechanics is my second cousin. ;)

The Widening Gyre 2005

[kolchis.livejournal.com]

PAST
Billy Joel: We Didn't Start The Fire
Beatles: Nowhere Man
David Bowie: Space Oddity (Sound+Vision)
Blue Oyster Cult: Veteran of the Psychic Wars
Mike& The Mechanics: Silent Running

PRESENT
Boomtown Rats: I Don't Like Mondays
Busta Rhymes: There's Only One Year Left (Extinction Level Event) [ignore last 10sec!]
Klaus Nomi: After The Fall
David Bowie: Ashes to Ashes (Tears for Fears Version)
King Crimson: Epitaph

FUTURE
Peter Gabriel: The Time of the Turning (OVO: The Millennium Show)
Rush: The Pass
Peter Gabriel: Downside-Up (OVO: The Millennium Show)
Sarah MacLachlan: Vox (Long Version)
Peter Gabriel: Make Tomorrow (OVO: The Millennium Show)

Re: The Widening Gyre 2005

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Wow, you left Peter Schilling's "Major Tom/Coming Home" out of this version?

Re: The Widening Gyre 2005

[kolchis.livejournal.com]

There's a sort of double reason for leaving it out.

One, it's really just a version of Space Oddity, and now seems sort of redundant. Two, it was more hopeful and less wistful than its original - and the times are grimmer now, where a lying excuse for He Who Presides casually promises exploration of another planet and then just as casually ignores that promise.

Re: The Widening Gyre 2005

[athelind.livejournal.com]

That was kind of my point -- Leaving out the English version is a cue that you've fallen into Pessimistic Mode.

Re: The Widening Gyre 2005

[kolchis.livejournal.com]

Actually, I haven't fallen into 'Pessimistic Mode', as you put it.

My attitude is actually more 'Darkest Before the Dawn'.

If you'll notice, the Past describes the previous era - the hope and optimism of the 60s and even the weird pastels of the 70s. "Silent Running" is the bridge to the Present.

The Present IS grim, there's no denying that. The American Dream is as in as much danger as it has ever been, and the possibilities are correspondingly unpleasant, though this section is leavened with humor as well.

But the Future is essentially optimistic - those songs embody the Choice of the Voice as represented in the Old Gyre; and on the whole, it's not a negative prediction.

As you might guess, I'm going to burn this and send it to you. :)

Re: The Widening Gyre 2005

[kolchis.livejournal.com]

And here is the Lyrics to the brilliantly creepy "Only One Year Left". This is intoned in an utterly serious male voice that gradually is replaced by a flatly inhuman and demonic voice.

ONLY ONE YEAR LEFT LYRICS

Little Girl:
"Daddy, what’s it gonna be like in the year 2000?"

Dad: "Well, sweetheart for your sake I hope it’ll all be peaches & cream.

But I’m afraid the End-Time is near. The cataclysmic apocalypse referred to in the scriptures of every holy book known to mankind.

It will be an era fraught with boundless greed & corruption, where global monetary systems disintegrate, leaving brother to kill brother for a grain of over-cooked rice.

The nations of the civilized world will collapse under the impressive weight of parasitic political conspiracies which remove all hope & optimism from their once-faithful citizens.

Around the globe, generations of polluters will be punished for their sins, unshielded by the ozone they have successfully depleted, left to bake in the searing naked rays of light.

Wholesale assassinations will serve to destabilize every remaining government, leaving the starving & wicked to fend for themselves. Bloodthirsty renegade cyborgs created by tax-dodging
corporations wreak havoc.

Pissed-off androids tired of being slaves to a godless & gutless system, where the rich get richer & the poor get fucked over and out, unleash total worldwide destruction by means of nuclear holocaust, annihilating the terrified masses, leaving in its torturous wake nothing but vicious, cannibalistic, mutating,irradiated, horribly disfigured hordes of satanic killers, bent on revenge.

Starvation reigns supreme, forcing unlucky survivors to eat anything & anyone in their path.

Massive earthquakes crack the planet's crust like a hollow eggshell, causing unending volcanic eruptions. Creatures of the seven seas, unable to escape the certain death upon land, boil in their liquid prison.

Disease then circles the earth, plagues & viruses with no known cause or cure laying waste to whatever draws breath, and humankind, having proven itself to be nothing more than a race of ruthless scavengers, falls victim to merciless attacks at the hands of interplanetary alien tribes who seek to conquer our charred remains.

This is the Extinction Level Event, the
Final World Front. There is Only. One. Year. Left.

Little Girl: "Wow, that’s cool, I can’t hardly wait!"

Dad: "You don’t have to, because here it is."