Track of the Week - 24 May 2020
It's been another quiet week in lockdown land. I did finish a very enjoyable FutureLearn course on 'How to Make a Poem' so I'm going down that route.
The first song I thought of with 'poem' in the title is this Gil Scott-Heron epic. It came into my life as the b-side of his Re-Ron, a 1984 single criticising the campaign to re-elect Ronald Reagan as American president.
Scott-Heron was a spoken-word performer and musician best known for The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. His work is credited as being an inspiration to rap and hip-hop.
Coincidentally, I'm currently reading a book about the development of soccer in the United States. Scott-Heron's father, Gil Heron, gets a mention as one of the best US players of his time. Heron played for the champion Detroit Wolverines and was top scorer in the 1946 season. He later signed for Celtic and is believed to be the first black player in the Scottish league.
Anyway back to Scott-Heron and 'B' Movie. It's from his 1981 album Reflections and is 12 brilliant minutes of highly-intelligent controlled anger comparing the situation in America at the time to a B movie.
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