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Lament For Detroit And Damascus

from Taisbean EP by Drew McNaughton

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about

The poem on this track was originally published under the same title in the Propaganda/Middle East issue (3.0) of The Angry Manifesto in September 2015. Thanks to Matt Duggan and Simon Leake for accepting my submission.

The inspiration for this one came from listening to a podcast done by a friend who DJ's under the name Red Rack'em which rekindled the spark of my interest in techno and also television reports at the time of terrible attacks on the people of Syria by their own leader.

I also recorded a voice only version of the poem which I put on Soundcloud in the hope that a producer would download it and use for a techno track as it references some of the pioneers of Detroit Techno. As no-one took up the challenge when I happened to get some free music software with a microphone interface I bought for my laptop I had a go at doing it myself and this is the result.

I have made this track the only one on the EP which you can download individually and as before the proceeds from downloads for this particular track I will donate to UNICEF in aid of the children of Syria.

lyrics

Music and culture have their roots
In the land and in the shifting sand.
Places once hallowed for their artistic role
Now stand merely a shattered husk of a whole.

Neglect, sore neglect of even young Detroit
Whose fame sprang once from the Motown Sound,
Holland, Dozier and Holland, Diana Ross,
Smokey, the Four Tops now at a loss
To see how the city has crumbled from within,
And the likes of Ritchie Hawtin, Juan Atkins,
All those pioneers who infused the electronic
With soul, brought to tears.

And if the forgetfulness of those so
Great of late can happen with such haste
Then a tragedy of much greater magnitude is
The fate of that well-spring of world renown:
Damascus.
It seems no wonder that the world
Has barely heard the cries and
Pitiable screams of terror from the
Once magnificent crucible of the
West’s arts, letters and music.
Another place tearing itself apart from within
While society stands by with blinkered eye
Conveniently forgetting the immense debt of
Gratitude we owe to them.

credits

from Taisbean EP, released April 17, 2017

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Drew McNaughton Scotland, UK

Drew McNaughton is a musician and poet who was born in Concord, Massachusetts and has greatly admired the writing of Emerson and Thoreau for many years. At an early age he also found that he was particularly drawn to the poetry of W. B. Yeats which has continued to be a major influence. Now living in Scotland he has recently been listening to Gaelic musicians and singers such as Julie Fowlis. ... more

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