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Tell the Gang on the Corner Not to Be Ignorant

from The Lobster Lies Down on Bourbon Street by vonHummer

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Sometimes lyrics come to me when I mis-hear lyrics to other songs. In this case, I was listening to a Fred Astaire song called, "Bo Jangles of Harlem." There's a girly chorus of show girls singing the first few lines and it sounded like they said, "Tell the gang on the corner..." and my mind just completed the line with the syntactical silliness of "...not to be ignorant."

I didn't know what the actual line in the Astaire song was until years later when I saw the film ("Top Hat" I think?) with closed captioning on. It's—oddly enough—"Old Bo Jangles of Harlem..." that I thought sounded like "Tell the gang on the corner..." Wow. Ears like a hawk, me.

As for text, at the time—in Portland especially—circa 2002, I remember a lot of matter of fact talk about "The Man" keeping us all down, the pot-boiler liberal hokum. Creatures of tradition, they could only think of The Man as corporations and bankers, and never see The Man as the massive government we had, and have even worse now, sitting all over us.

So I wrote up this little ditty, fired up by the novelty of writing what—on the face—seems to be a lefty sermon of the same old same old revolution, but is actually a "pull yourself up by the bootstraps with the help of Big Daddy Government" sermon of good ol' Yankee can-doism.

Luckily, none of that seems to come through unless one reads the lyrics very carefully, and so—like "Won't Get Fooled Again" all those decades ago—has been taken by many, many lefties in my audience as being an anthem in agreement with their dreary anger. Which they're equally welcome to enjoy, of course.

I just write em and play em. I can't tell you what to do with these songs.

lyrics

"Tell the Gang on the Corner Not to Be Ignorant"
(vonHummer)

Tell the gang not to let The Man™ give them anything that can’t be taken away…that can’t be taken away…oh, by a good night’s sleeping…
Tell the gang not to move along when The Man™ says abandon ship with no lifeboats to be seen…with no lifeboats to be seen…oh, in his keeping…
Tell the gang on the corner not to be ignorant…
Tell the gang not to let The Man™ sell them big ideas of helping them help themselves…helping them help themselves…oh, to his boots by licking…
Tell the gang not to let The Man™ tell them peace in our time takes trust and understanding…takes trust and understanding…oh, and not a good ass kicking…
Tell the gang on the corner not to be ignorant…
Tell the gang sometimes The Man™ is a woman, tell the gang sometimes The Man™ is a film, tell the gang sometimes The Man™ will sing songs about forsaking The Man™ so you feel like you have but you never will,
Tell the gang to give up all hope, tell the gang to take an honest look at their corner before it explodes, tell the gang that the corner’s a crossroads...
Tell the gang not to let The Man™ give them anything that can’t be taken away…that can’t be taken away…oh, by a good night’s sleeping…

credits

from The Lobster Lies Down on Bourbon Street, track released February 17, 2002
Bass drone, high guitar drone and vocals by vonHummer. Produced by Clark Kent for Therisno Records.

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vonHummer Portland, Oregon

vonHummer is a Portland music/cable access legend whose career spanned from Fall of 2001 to Fall of 2011, during which he recorded a hundred or so songs for use in his absurdist show (and feature film) and played only a handful of concerts. Currently retired, his work shines on for the ages. Or will he someday return...? ... more

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