RadioBuscio: 4+20 (CSNY cover)
[Purchase CSNY version]
As some of you know, I write out of Istanbul, Turkey, and
while the SMM purvey here is not political, obviously, my thoughts have been focused
locally these past few days. Focused, in that I have been asking myself which
song could best combine current regional events with our current theme of
numbers.
As you may have read or heard, the long-cowed local press
was slow to provide facts (Turkish journalism is generally poor on this count:
generally omitting the who, what, where and when - I taught Journalism here several years back
so I consider myself somewhat informed) But in this case, because the
government has long since subsumed most news outlets through financial and legal
threats, they were once again slow to provide the facts/ the numbers. And that is
a major issue behind the brouhaha at Taksim Gezi Park.
Having participated in the marches on Washington in the
early 70s (and a few I myself organized), I find it easy to draw parallels: government
information in the US in the 70s wasn’t always above board. And it was – more often
than not – the musical community that stood up and pointed this out.
In this respect, I think first of CSNY. Even before they were
outright vocal about their anti-war opinions, their music was provocative: “Almost
Cut My Hair” and “Woodstock”, for example. Although they weren’t alone by any
means, there are several CSN(Y) titles that were anthems of a kind for the
Vietnam protest era: “Ohio” (about Kent State), “Find the Cost of Freedom”, “Chicago”
(about the 1968 Democratic Convention)
However, all this needs to revert to our current theme of
numbers, and it is the CSN song 4+20 that I present in this light. The lyrics
of the song say: “a different kind of poverty now upsets me so”, and ..if I may
extend the thought, that seems to be a major part of the current unrest in
Turkey: a different kind of poverty – a poverty of freedoms.
This version of the song, by RadioBucio (aka Jonathan from
Chicago [again!]) is a free download from SoundCloud