Setlist :
0:00 : Brown Girl (from the album « Reincarnation », 1972)
2:48 : Attica (from the album « Snake », 1972)
8:00 : Pay Me What You Own Me (from the album « Reincarnation », 1972)
11:58 : Empty Barrels (from the album « Reincarnation », 1972)
16:28 : Exuma, The Obeah Man (from the album « Exuma », 1970)
Musicians :
Achmed Ben Mansel (Yogi Bagabby) : Tambourine, maracas, etc.
Kester Smith : Drums
Michael O’Neil (Ouimungie Pappa Legba) : Saxophone & congas
Tony McKay AKA Exuma : Vocals & guitar
Somewhere in the United States (probably), in the late 80’s (maybe).
This is a song my dad taught me when I was a kid. That’s a lie. This is a song I learned from some kids in the alley behind the theatre That’s a lie too. I learned this from Gregory Peck. That too is a lie. They’re all lies. The whole song is a lie. No it’s not. I learned this from Pavarotti…
The bats are in the belfry
The dew is on the moor
Where are the arms that held me
And pledged her love before
And pledged her love before
And it’s such a sad old feeling
All the fields are soft and green
It’s memories that I’m stealing
But you’re innocent when you dream
When you dream
You’re innocent when you dream
When you dream
You’re innocent when you dream
I made a golden promise
That we would never part
I gave my love a locket
And then I broke her heart
And then I broke her heart
And it’s such a sad old feeling
All of the fields are soft and green
And it’s memories that I’m stealing
But you’re innocent when you dream
When you dream
You’re innocent when you dream
When you dream
You’re innocent when you dream
We’ve running through the graveyard
And we laughed, my friends and I
We swore we’d be together
Until the day we died
Until the day we died
And it’s such a sad old feeling
All of the fields are soft and green
And it’s memories that I’m stealing
But you’re innocent when you dream
When you dream
You’re innocent when you dream
When you dream
You’re innocent when you dream
And it’s such a sad old feeling
The fields are soft and green
And it’s memories that I’m stealing
But you’re innocent when you dream
When you dream
You’re innocent when you dream
When you dream
You’re innocent when you dream
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn that he not busy being born
Is busy dying
Temptation’s page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you’d just be
One more person crying
So don’t fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It’s alright, Ma, I’m only sighing
As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don’t hate nothing at all
Except hatred
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred
While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked
An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it
Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you
You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks they really found you
A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to
Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to
For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Do what they do just to be nothing more than something they invest in
While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole that he’s in
But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him
Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn’t talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony
While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer’s pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death’s honesty
Won’t fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me
And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only
Zuunzug 