[lit-ideas] Re: C'mon people now - or almost rhyming


On 25-Feb-09, at 10:17 PM, Eric Yost wrote:
... Speaking of bad lyrics, I've had this lyric bouncing around my empty brain: 

C'mon people now, smile on your brothers
everybody get together
and kinda love one another right now.
Young Pioneers or some flapdoodle like that. But how fascist it is! How utterly totalitarian in its exhortation to "kinda love" right now! And not just kinda love, but everybody ... now ... the horror, the horror!
Imagining this old hippie ditty, I usually picture people goose stepping. How could a whole generation fall for the illusion ... oh yeah ... drugs ... never mind.
Having heard - and no doubt participated (with the aid of 'overhead' transparencies projected onto the church wall to the right of the altar) in the singing of - this song at countless (Roman Catholic) Folk Masses, I can report on good authority that the words are not 'kinda love' but 'try to love'. 

The words are quite clearly enunciated on the version found at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5ALKAaa-TU&feature=related
A truncated rather shaky (but again clearly enunciated) live version can be heard at: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbQ5rHzrhVw&feature=related
The complete lyrics are reproduced (no, not from memory of those transparencies) below. 

Chris Bruce
who coincidently dreamt last night that his hair was once again long enough to braid, (and now you've set those David Crosby lyrics running through his mind), in 
Kiel, Germany

GET TOGETHER
words and music by Chet Powers

Love is but a song we sing
And fear's the way we die.
You can make the mountains ring
Or make the angels cry.
Though the bird is on the wing
And you may not know why.

C'mon people now
Smile on your brother
Ev'rybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Some will come and some will go
And we shall surely pass.
When the one that left us here
Returns for us at last.
We are but a moment's sunlight
Fading in the grass.

C'mon people now
Smile on your brother
Ev'rybody get together
Try to love one another right now

If you hear the song we sing
You will understand.
You hold the key to love and fear
In your trembling hand.
Just one key unlocks them both
It's there at your command

C'mon people now
Smile on your brother
Ev'rybody get together
Try to love one another right now

--


------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html

Other related posts: