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Christ For President

Billy Bragg
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Billy Bragg

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braggtag
Words/Parole: Woody Guthrie
Music/Musica: Bragg/Tweedy/Bennett
Album: Billy Bragg & Wilco, Mermaid Avenue [1998]

Tra i principali meriti di Billy Bragg, qui in "combutta" con Wilco, c'è quello di aver reso musica ad alcune canzoni di Woody Guthrie che non avevano fino a quel momento potuto trovarla. Così è stato, ad esempio, (ma non in questo album) per All You Fascists, che però in questo sito è ascritta "motu proprio" a Woody Guthrie, e per tutte le canzoni di questo album del 1998. Un segno del legame indissolubile tra Woody Guthrie e Billy Bragg; quel che Woody aveva lasciato, Billy lo ha continuato. [CCG/AWS Staff]

mermaidave"Mermaid Avenue is a 1998 album of previously unheard lyrics written by American folk singer Woody Guthrie, put to music written and performed by British singer Billy Bragg and the American band Wilco. The project was organized by Guthrie's daughter, Nora Guthrie. Mermaid Avenue was released on the Elektra Records label on June 23, 1998. A second volume of recordings, Mermaid Avenue Vol. II, followed in 2000. The projects are named after a song "Mermaid's Avenue" written by Guthrie. This was also the street in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York on which Guthrie lived. During the spring of 1995, Woody Guthrie's daughter Nora had contacted English singer-songwriter Billy Bragg about writing music for a selection of completed Guthrie lyrics. Her father had left behind over a thousand sets of complete lyrics written between 1939 and 1967; none of these lyrics had any music other than a vague stylistic notation. According to Bob Dylan's autobiographical Chronicles, Woody Guthrie offered his unpublished songs to Dylan, but the young singer was unable to get them from Guthrie's family (he tells a story about a reluctant babysitter). Nora Guthrie's liner notes in Mermaid Avenue indicate that it was her intention that the songs be given to a new generation of musicians who would be able to make the songs relevant to a younger generation. Nora Guthrie contacted Bragg, who in turn approached Wilco and asked them to participate in the project as well. Wilco agreed, and in addition to recording with Bragg in Ireland, they were given their own share of songs to finish. Rather than recreating tunes in Guthrie's style, Bragg and Wilco created new, contemporary music for the lyrics. What seemed like a risky enterprise surprised everyone; released in 1998 as Mermaid Avenue, the results were met with universal acclaim. The album received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Album, and went on to place fourth on the Pazz & Jop Critics Poll for 1998 (right behind Bob Dylan's Live 1966)." - en.wikipedia.
Let's have christ for president.
Let us have him for our king.
Cast your vote for the carpenter
That you call the nazarene.

The only way we can ever beat
These crooked politician men
Is to run the money changers out of the temple
And put the carpenter in

O it's jesus christ for president
God above our king
With a job and a pension for young and old
We will make hallelujah ring

Every year we waste enough
To feed the ones who starve
We build our civilization up
And we shoot it down with wars

But with the carpenter on the seat
Away up in the capital town
The usa would be on the way prosperity bound!

Contributed by Riccardo Venturi - 2008/8/28 - 08:58



Language: Italian

Versione italiana di Riccardo Venturi
Piacenza, 28 agosto 2008
CRISTO PRESIDENTE

Facciamo cristo presidente,
anzi, no, facciamolo re.
Votate per il falegname
che chiamate “nazzareno”

L'unico modo in cui possiamo battere
'sti politici disonesti
è buttar fuori i mercanti dal tempio
e metterci dentro il falegname

Eh, gesù cristo presidente
E dio dei cieli come re
un lavoro e la pensione per giovani e vecchi
e faremo risuonare gli alleluja

Ogni anno sprechiamo tanto
da nutrire chi muore di fame
ci costruiamo la civiltà
e poi la distruggiamo con le guerre

Ma col falegname al potere
lassù nella capitale
gli stati uniti si avvierebbero alla prosperità!

2008/8/28 - 10:39




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