Sunday 31 July 2016

"Keep on Rockin' in the Free World"

'There’s a warning sign on the road ahead,
There’s a lot of people saying we’d be better off dead
Keep on rockin’ in the free world
Keep on rockin’ in the free world.'



I'm desperate! Dan




But where is the free world, Neil ?
Is your irony lost on me?

I no longer act  -  too numb to feel.
I guess I’ll go back to bonnie Dundee
Where D.C. Thomson publishes reactionary tripe
Twixt couthy lines frae The Broons and Desperate Dan
That scramble my mind and fog up my sight
Of the devil and detail of a usurer's scam.
___________


The first stanza is taken from Neil Young's "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World" to be found on his 1989 album "Freedom."

My photo caption is extracted from the script of Alan Bleasdale's "Boys from the Black Stuff" (BBC, 1982).


The statue of Desperate Dan created in 2001 by artists Tony and Susie Morrows shows the great man striding the High Street, Dundee.




Postscript added 14th July, 2019

Just back from London after listening to and watching Neil Young and Bob Dylan. It was a great gig and both men impressed in their own way. Let's not forget, they're both in their seventies. Not that it was a competition, the two men are friends, but Young edged it. Though staying to listen to Dylan's full set paid dividends for you gradually began to understand where he's at now.
Apparently difficulties with the management teams meant they couldn't sing together on a song, though the folk who saw the show in Kilkenny were treated to a brief joint performance.
For me it was fantastic, I'd never heard or seen Bob Dylan live, and of course Neil Young is one of my heroes. It was great how he knocked Barclaycard "oot o' the game".
I'm well over seventy years old too and this was probably the last time I'll be standing on my feet for seven hours.
"Why not sit down?" you may ask. Look, if I sit on the ground these days, there is a good chance I'll never get up again. 


No comments: