Walk Tall

Jun 2, 2020 | Covid-19 Diary, Dead Water

Taken literally, Gil Scott Heron was wrong: the revolution is being televised. It’s on rolling channels twenty-four hours a day, with, in the USA, Fox leading the charge. The revolution being the invasive hegemony of the right, of white supremacy, and the rise of the more moronic representatives of American exceptionalism.

Gil was also wrong to say there will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers on the instant replay when pictures of the deliberate asphyxiation of George Floyd in Minneapolis are all over everywhere. In large part that’s because, when Gil sang his song in 1971, the notion that we would nearly all carry in our pockets or bags devices capable of making near-broadcast quality video recordings was still something for science fiction authors to write about.

But, of course, literalism was not Gil’s point; he was using wit and absurdity to push a more basic message that resolves itself in the final couplet:

The revolution will be no re-run, brothers
The revolution will be live

What’s happening in the USA right now can be no surprise to anyone, and in saying that I’m in no sense blind to rights and equality issues here in the UK. It’s been 49 years since The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and, points of literalism notwithstanding, the underlying anger has not changed, it’s just moved to a new generation. Even the greatest protest song I ever heard (not a white guy with a guitar singing about blowin’ in the wind but NWA’s Fuk Da Police) was released 17 years after Gil’s tune and is already 32 years old.

I have no idea where it’s all going but, in gloomy mood, I think there’s a decent chance 45 will try and use the current situation as a means to postpone or delay the upcoming election, and he will have the support of the GOP establishment in doing so. If that fails, and he loses (and I think there’s a good chance he’s on for a second term), I can’t see him relinquishing office easily. And in any event, this is too deep seated an issue to go away because of an election; too much chaos has been unleashed and encouraged. I do not see any good way out of this in the short term for the USA.

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Music: That Gil Scott Heron was performing that song in 1971 pushes us back to the Civil Rights movements of the late sixties and early seventies. One of the things that has struck me with renewed clarity about my 1970 project has been just how much of the music of those times that I like is black music, and how much of that is explicitly or implictly bound up in Civil Rights. Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Miles Davis, amongst many others, were increasingly vocal about racism, as was, for example, Marvin Gaye.

Cannonball Adderley’s Country Preacher (recorded in 1969, released in the UK in 1970) is a fine example. Introduced by Rev. Jesse Jackson, this is not jazz for polite white audiences, this is music to help an oppressed people walk tall.