Also, surprisingly there are lyrics buried in the song.
“The best thing about life is knowing you put it together.” — Pinprick
Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away
I know a man
He came from my home town
He wore his passion for his woman
Like a thorny crown
He said Delores
I live in fear
My love for you's so overpowering
I'm afraid that I will disappear
Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away
I know a woman
Became a wife
These are the very words she uses
To describe her life
She said a good day
Ain't got no rain
She said a bad day's when I lie in bed
And think of things that might have been
Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away
And I know a father
Who had a son
He longed to tell him all the reasons
For the things he'd done
He came a long way
Just to explain
He kissed his boy as he lay sleeping
Then he turned around and headed home again
He's slip slidin'
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away
God only knows
God makes his plan
The information's unavailable
To the mortal man
We work our jobs
Collect our pay
Believe we're gliding down the highway
When in fact we're slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away
[The right-wing magazine] 'Counterattack' and the FBI succeeded in blacklisting the Weavers, but If I Had A Hammer was unconquerable. The song had a specific radical message in 1952; when Seeger suggested the Weavers perform it on bookings, one of them answered, "Oh no. We can't get away with anything like that."
"Why was it controversial?" Pete reflected. "In 1949 only 'Commies' used words like 'peace' and 'freedom'. ... The message was that we have got tools and that we are going to succeed. This is what a lot of spirituals say. We will overcome. I have a hammer. [...] No one could take these away." The Weavers never had the opportunity to make a hit of this - that honor fell to Peter, Paul and Mary - but they had the satisfaction of seeing that no edict and no committee could kill [the] song. (Dunaway, Seeger 157)
[1989:] It was becoming dangerous to be a performer if you were suspected of having left-wing views, and the following year Seeger and [Paul] Robeson faced their most dangerous concert of all. The venue was Peekskill, New York State, where on 4 September 1949 they both appeared at an outdoor show that turned into one of the most terrifying and violent events in the history of pop music.
Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.
Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.
Old man look at my life,
Twenty four
and there's so much more
Live alone in a paradise
That makes me think of two.
Love lost, such a cost,
Give me things
that don't get lost.
Like a coin that won't get tossed
Rolling home to you.
Old man take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me
the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes
and you can tell that's true.
Lullabies, look in your eyes,
Run around the same old town.
Doesn't mean that much to me
To mean that much to you.
I've been first and last
Look at how the time goes past.
But I'm all alone at last.
Rolling home to you.
Old man take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me
the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes
and you can tell that's true.
Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.
Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.
I'd become conditioned, I guess, to conceive of 'my self' in different tenses (i.e. a non-unitary past self – present self – future self simultaneously) ... — 180 Proof
Based on inherent vulnerability to consequent harms, how can a future self [FuS] be judged not to have standing on, or claim to, the moral concern (i.e. judgments and conduct) of its past self [PaS] which includes most proximately the present self [PrS]? In the same sense that a future self [FuS] is always at risk of e.g. lung cancer caused by its past self's [PaS]'s cigarette habit, a claim on the present self's [PrS]'s agency (especially when foreseeable) functions as a tradeoff - cautionary - constraint on judgments (i.e. preferences, priorities ...) and conduct (i.e. practices, relationships ...) vis-à-vis health. Is concern for 'moral health', so to speak, really any different? — 180 Proof
We only need to consider that persons have (asymmetrically) 'temporal parts', so to speak, which are simultaneously anterior and posterior (except at both ends) much like the stages of development - infant, toddler, child, adolescent, young adult, middle age adult, elder adult - none of which are "the same person" only bearers of a shared continuity of memories, relationships and embodied perspective (vide Parfit ...) — 180 Proof
You and the You next to You — Berlin church poster, c1980
What do you see, nurse, what do you see?
What are you thinking when you’re looking at me?
A crabby old woman, not very wise,
Uncertain of habit, with far away eyes.
Who dribbles her food and makes no reply
When you say in a loud voice, “I do wish you’d try?”
Who seems not to notice the things that you do,
And forever is losing a stocking or shoe..
Later...
But inside this old carcass a young girl still dwells,
And now and again my battered heart swells.
I remember the joys, I remember the pain,
And I’m loving and living life over again...
Only recently did I realize how this soulful, old song had seeped into my bones decades ago and then in years since would spark these speculations on my/our many-tensed selves ... — 180 Proof
Joseph's face was black as night
The pale yellow moon shone in his eyes
His path was marked
By the stars in the Southern Hemisphere
And he walked his days
Under African skies
This is the story of how we begin to remember
This is the powerful pulsing of love in the vein
After the dream of falling and calling your name out
These are the roots of rhythm
And the roots of rhythm remain
In early memory
Mission music
Was ringing 'round my nursery door
I said take this child, Lord
From Tucson Arizona
Give her the wings to fly through harmony
And she won't bother you no more
This is the story of how we begin to remember
This is the powerful pulsing of love in the vein
After the dream of falling and calling your name out
These are the roots of rhythm
And the roots of rhythm remain
Joseph's face was black as night
And the pale yellow moon shone in his eyes
His path was marked
By the stars in the Southern Hemisphere
And he walked the length of his days
Under African skies
And I am not frightened of dying
Any time will do,
I don't mind.
Why should I be frightened of dying?
There's no reason for it,
You've gotta go sometime.
I never said I was frightened of dying.
Breathe, breathe in the air
Don't be afraid to care
Leave, don't leave me
Look around, choose your own ground
Long you live and high you fly
Smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be
Run, rabbit, run
Dig that hole, forget the sun
When at last the work is done
Don't sit down, it's time to dig another one
Long you live and high you fly
But only if you ride the tide
Balanced on the biggest wave
Race towards an early grave
... And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, 'The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence.'
just to hear what I'd missed that evening way back in the crowd blissfully stoned with a girl. — 180 Proof
Sporadic sessions were held in Abbey Road during October, during the first of which Dick Parry, an old friend of the band’s from Cambridge, overdubbed sax solos to Money and Us And Them.
Later in the month a quartet of female session vocalists – Doris Troy, Lesley Duncan, Liza Strike and Barry St John – were brought in to embellish Us And Them, Brain Damage and Eclipse.
"They weren’t very friendly," said Duncan looking back. "They were cold, rather clinical. They didn’t emanate any kind of warmth… They just said what they wanted and we did it… There were no smiles. We were all quite relieved to get out."
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