Track 05
Interesting Times
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Interesting Times
A kind of ska protest song
Interesting Times owes its origins to Castro and the Cuban Missile Crisis, so quite apposite to have its release just as he dies... It’s a kind-of ska-ish protest song…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td-2HzHhZoY&t=29s
Written after visiting Bunker 42 in Moscow, the nuclear bunker where the Soviet Generals were holed-up during the Cuban missile crisis.. It got me thinking how 'simple' life was back then and how chaotic and random it has become since the end of the cold war...It's initial title was Handcart to Hell. It then gained a coda after Brexit/trump and was retitled Interesting Times (after the Chinese curse...via Pratchett)
words and music by Martin Stirrup 2017
Am (C) E (C ) Am
When I was young everything was clear
Am G C G B B7
Nuclear Annihilation was all we had to fear
(C) E (C ) Am
All through the cold war we were taught our place
Am G C G Am
By the iron curtain and crazy arms race
D A E A
So we all cheered as the east broke free
G E
A blow for freedom and democracy
D A E A
But who’d have thought as the Berlin Wall fell
Bm E
The world’d go sliding in a handcart to hell
Confidently the west turned its wrath
On those dictators cut from a different cloth
And in the name of freedom and democracy
We set about destroying their stability
Absolute power corrupts all who wield
And those who hold it are unwilling to yield
We all cheered when those despots fell
But now we’re all sliding in a handcart to hell
Now everywhere it seems that chaos reigns
Loss of faith in politics just fans the flames
What works for us don’t seem to work for you
Changing too quickly makes a dangerous brew
We all cheered when the masses broke free
A blow for freedom and democracy
But who’d have thought as the old order fell
The world’d go sliding in a handcart to hell
Coda
G Am
But then we got Brexit – and now we’ve got Trump
Am G C G Am
If you’d have bet against me on that I’d have called you a chump
G E7
But now it seems to me that for a way down the line
Am G C G B B7
We’ll all be living in interesting times
Intro as outro to fade – becoming increasingly discordant