The Hammock Papers: Joe Strummer, "Global a Go-Go"

30 July 2016

Joe Strummer, "Global a Go-Go"

World service bulletin

From the nightshift DJ
To all wavebands on earth
Reconnoiter on the kilohertz

This tune is going out to Marconi
To all corners of the globe
There ain't no hut in the Serengeti
Where my wavelengths do not probe

If a rocket went to Saturn
We sure hope a DJ is on board
For some anti-gravity mixing
With two dub plates of U-Roy

Throwdown

Stray Cat strut in Bulawayo
Buddy Rich in Burundi
Quadrophenia in Armenia
Armenia City In The Sky
Big Youth booming in Djakarta
Nina Simone over Sierra Leone
Wild sound of Joujouka in Nevada
Everywhere, everywhere Bob's bringing it all back home

Yeah, I let the boogie-woogie rumble
In the back of Bangalore
I get complaints from Bondi Beach
What, no longboard surf hardcore
Oh, send the rock steady out to Freddy
Who juggles plates in Tsing Tao City

'Cause tonight Bo Diddley's in Finland Station
Sun Ra's in Omaha
The Skatalites in New York City
The Stooges rule over Habana
The Bhundu Boys rock Acapulco
Good hip hop in Islamabad
Ali Farke Toure's in Oaxaca

And Baaba Maal's all over Stalingrad

Yeah, while some are waking, some are sleeping
From Kamchatka to the Gabon
Above the trade wind, wingtips beating
We calling out for Ronnie and da-do Ron, Ron, Ron

We call the Cumbria to tumble
From the peak of the Himalayas
We send the funk into the jungle
To the last outpost of the bass player

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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL