The H2OGate Blues

Cada vez que ouço o The H2OGate Blues no Itunes penso sempre que se refere à politica actual do Bush e ao Iraque, até que ouço os nomes e me lembro que tem mais de 30 anos e que é sobre o Nixon e o Watergate e a guerra do Vietnam.

Trata-se de um blues falado (percursor do Rap) absolutamente fantástico, e foi escrito pelo Gill Scott-Heron em 1974. Fica aqui para quem o quiser ouvir. Tem 8 minutos, mas vale mesmo a pena.



The H2OGate Blues

You don’t want to be involved in this. This is going to be a blues number.
Let me see if I can dial this number
(Heron is apparently dialing the White House)
Click ringing, ringing (clicking noise indicating a recording devise)
(Phone answers)
I’m sorry sir but the government you have elected is inoperative. Click inoperative.

Just how blind America will be? (Audience “ain’t no telling”)

The world is on the edge of its seat
Defeat on the arising very surprising
That we could all see the plot
And claim that we could not

Just how blind America
Just as Vietnam exploded
In the rise crackle pop could not stop
People determined to be free
Just how blind will America be?

The shock of a Vietnam defeat
Sent Republicans to Wall Street
And when the roll was called
It was Pepsi Cola and Philips 66
Boeing and Lockheed

Ask them what they’re fighting for
And they will never mention the economics of war

Ecological warfare above all else
Destroy the land
If we can’t break the Asian will
Bomb the dikes and starve the man

America the international Jekyll and Hyde.
The land of a thousand faces
Sneaking up on you but rarely surprises

Afraid of shoeless undernourished Cambodians
While we strike big wheat bargains with Russia
Our nuclear enemy

(Excerto tirado daqui)


NOTA: O Gill Scott-Heron é também o autor e cantor de uma das minhas músicas preferidas, Home Is Where The Hatred Is. Se bem que para mim a melhor versão é esta, da minha Esther Phillips. Ouvi-a muito na minha cabeça enquanto via a primeira série do The Wire. E aqui, também, a versão apropriada pelo Kaney West.