TAMLA 54086
1963
I remain profoundly and, in all likelihood, immovably unconvinced by the freemarketeering pro-nuclear corn ethanol salesman Barack Obama. Anyone who can say 'clean coal' with a straight face is not to be trusted on anything.
But seeing Stevie Wonder singing Obama's name, though. Before I saw that I didn't think anything could ever persuade me to step into the ring and be the puppet of ecocidal vested interests. Now, however, I totally get why Obama's up for it and suspect that in his position I'd go for it too.
Just imagine it, only with Stevie Wonder singing your name.
.
Even allowing for the tracksuit misjudgement, tell me this wouldn't do it for you too;
Those, though, are as nowt. Check out Superstition on Sesame Street.
It's the song as we know it but with - is it possible? - even more funk. Then it goes into an uber-funky jam for two minutes, then a false ending. Then - you fucking what? - a minute of Stevie singing 'Sesame Street'! Over Superstition!
Bear in mind that, ten years into a career of classics, the guy was only 22 or 23 here; he has the kudos, the track record, the long-term immersion in music that make it seem to be something he breathes. Set free from the bonds of this earth, he's adrift in funk heaven. At the same age 'young' pop stars like Noel Gallagher and Morten Harket were still years away from making their first records.
But it's way back to the start we're going to go now. As Little Stevie Wonder, he released his first single in 1962 aged 12. Already he was good enough to not only sing but play drums on it too.
The breakthrough came the following year with the storming live single Fingertips Part 2 (Marvin Gaye on drums that time), a spontaneous freakout that sounded like a James Brown's band squirting gospel as they fell down a stairwell.
The follow-up was this equally frenetic riproaring gospel swirl, Workout Stevie Workout. It's an irresistably joyous, contagious, uplifting soulful geyser to bounce you round the room.
[Sorry! MP3 deleted to make way for new ones]
6 comments:
frickin' WORD!
Stevie rules. Obama is a corporate whore.
"Anyone who can say 'clean coal' with a straight face is not to be trusted on anything."
Snigger.
OK - but tell me that you're NOT voting for McPalin!
Whoah there anonyperson!
Nonononononononononono. No. No.
No.
Firstly, I'm in England and I don't get a vote. It seems unfair, given that the choice of US president has at least as much impact on my life and my country as our choice of Prime Minister. How odd that the US started out as our colony but now we're effectively theirs.
An objection to Obama is not an endorsement of McCain. I can't find anything bad that Obama'd do where McCain wouldn't be far worse.
McCain, the guy who thinks the problem with Iraq is that we haven't been militaristic enough. The guy who takes climate change so seriously he wants to do offshore drilling. The guy who looks like Noam Chomsky compared to Sarah Palin, the climate-denier creationist.
Palin is so clearly Dubya's replacement, a dimwit mascot for the psychopathis neoliberal powers.
But even if Obama went through with all his promises, they're pathetic. Climate change is the most pressing problem of our time and the science is clear. Obama's plans will not make the cuts we need.
He and McCain favour a cap-and-trade system like the kind that the rest of us signed up to with the Kyoto agreement. It created a great new market for corporate profit and delivered and increase in emissions.
In climate terms, the choice between McCain and Obama is like deciding whether to drive over a cliff at 50mph or 70mph.
Me, if I voted I'd vote for one of the othrs. I don't hold with the idea that Nader cost Gore the presidency.
Firstly, Bush cost Gore the presidency by rigging the vote. Secondly, if you can't put enough clear water between yourself and Bush, that's nobody's fault but your own.
Nader's votes didn't 'belong' to Gore. Rather, because so many people vote for the lesser of the two evils despite what they really believe, a lot of Gore's votes really belonged to Nader. And if the Democrats start losing votes to the left then they'll shift policy that way to try and win them back, and politics will start to more accurately reflect the real desires of the people.
In theory. In practice, like anyone else in the White House, Clinton/Gore were the puppets of Big Fossil. Gore knew all about climate change before he became VP, publishing a superb book on it.
Yet who was the leader of the American delegation that expertly wrecked the Kyoto agreement? Yep, Gore. We can expect the same of Obama. You don't get to be president unless you serve the interests that maintain the office.
But, yes, there are clear differences and major social policy differences between the Obama and McCain camps, and McCain is invariably the worse. Given Stalin vs Satan, I'd vote Stalin.
both are not worth 2 cents obama is for all the blacks and mccann the old people?
stevie is cool.
i remember him singing superstion on seasame street.
both are not worth 2 cents obama is for all the blacks and mccann the old people?
I'm not sure I get what you mean.
Is it that they've been deployed by their parties to corner those demographics?
Or is it that they will have an inherent bias in favour of those demographics?
Either way, there's something in it that I find a tad dubious, namely that any time a public figure deviates from being white, middle aged and male they get noted for it, as if it were somehow abnormal.
great blog
listed!
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