‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ - Gil Scot-Heron, 1971
Not sure what GSH would think of the ol’ YouTube age we now find ourselves in, but he sure would have empathised with the doom-mongering of the credit crunch. If ever there was a song to dance that worry away to, this is it.
Originally issued as a b-side (I guess GSH didn’t realise how era-defining the song was), ‘The Revolution…’ is, up there with ‘What’s Going On’ and ‘Move On Up’, one of the defining anthems for those who wanted to see change in their world.
What Heron is getting at is that sitting around waiting for the changes you want to be broadcast on the news is never gonna work. You’ve got to get out there and make these changes happen in the world. There’s no point being an ‘armchair sergeant’. He uses humour and casual putdowns (“The revolution wil not be brought to you by Xerox in four parts without commercial interruptions”, or “The revovlution will not make you look five pounds thinner”) to get across how serious he is. It works brilliantly.
Musically, it’s a great little concoction. Everyone knows I love a good bass line, and this has got a stonker. The music is chilled, groovy, all those things. There’s a bit of flute in there, and the drums aren’t trying too hard. It all comes together beautifully.
The world has changed a lot since those grim days of pre-Watergate 1970s America (of course I wouldn’t know, wasn’t even a glint in the milkman’s eye back then), but some things are strikingly similar to 1971 - “The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath”. 37 years later, Listerine are still peddling that line. Without the revolution part, of course. Here’s the song, with a cool video.
Last 5 posts by Dave
- 'Sunflower' - Paul Weller, 1993 - December 18th, 2008
- 'Brilliant Mistake' - Elvis Costello, 1986 - December 16th, 2008
- 'Icky Thump' - The White Stripes, 2007 - December 11th, 2008
- 'Careering' - Public Image Limited, 1979 - December 10th, 2008
- 'We'll Meet Again' - Vera Lynn, 1939 - December 5th, 2008
