Sometime next month they’re going to have a circle jerk on CBS called "The Grammys".  Under the illusion of honoring achievement dolled-up stars supported by rich fuck execs are going to applaud their inherently flawed system.  One in which the public is considered ignorant and plastic discs must be sold at all costs.  The cost of progress, the cost of more music for more people, the cost of emotional well-being.

But don’t blame the Grammys.  NARAS is just a zit on the ass of the problem.  A fucked up country of winners ignoring the losers.  America has gone from the land of opportunity to the land of I’ve got mine, FUCK YOU!  When even the "New York Times" no longer prints the truth, who do we turn to?

Musicians.

Artists save the country, make no mistake.

It’s tough to be an artist.  Oh, you can go to Berklee, but really, a musician is self-taught.  He runs on inspiration.  From deep inside he’s driven to get his message out.  There’s no guarantee, only wide open spaces.  Within which you can tour and try to spread the word.

Oh, we used to live in a democracy.  Radio stations played a broad swath of material.  The best rose to the top.  If you still believe this is the case, then you’ve never heard of Eliot Spitzer.  As for alternative forms of distribution, the big time content holders, the ones behind the Grammys, have hamstrung Internet radio, they don’t want any means of distribution, exploitation, EXHIBITION unless they control it, and own the lion’s share of what’s played.

Who’s losing out here?

The people.

The people have been losing out this entire decade.

Some don’t know it.  They’re too busy going to church.  Feeling that Jesus will save them when the government abandons them and Wal-Mart destroys their town.

It’s about education.  A No Child Left Behind bill that is not funded.  As if someone who owes you and doesn’t pay you is doing something good for you.  If you’re stupid, if you’re fucking without protection and unable to read the newspaper, the fat cats will be able to do whatever they want.  With the complicit news media in tow.  Used to be America was about diversity.  Ain’t that a crock.  If you’re not Christian and Republican you’re not entitled to an opinion.  Don’t ask me, ask Bill Maher, the Dixie Chicks and everybody who Dick Cheney is deploring while he’s spying on them.

Now I understand why people in third world countries sacrifice their lives for freedom.  I’d be willing not to ski another day if it meant freedom of speech and true science could survive in America.  And it might come to that.  For if we don’t live in a free society, life is barely worth living.

And what are we presented with on the airwaves?  No-talents like Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan.  Rappers glorifying a thug life as their brethren are in a ghetto stranglehold.  There’s no fucking truth.  And what blew up this business was truth.

You know truth.  It RESONATES!  You can’t DENY IT!

Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign
Sitting there by the left turn line
Flag on the wheelchair flapping in the breeze
One leg missing and both hands free
No one’s paying much mind to him
The V.A. budget’s stretched so thin
And there’s more comin’ back from the Mideast war
We can’t make it here anymore

We’re not America haters, we’re America LOVERS!  How can you send people off to war without the proper equipment?  How can the man who provided inadequate body armor throw a Bat Mitzvah for his daughter with a ten million dollar entertainment budget?  How can those shot up come home to no support?  Those are questions that are barely asked in the mainstream media.  Because they would reveal the maggots at the core.  It falls to the artist, who’s got nothing to lose, who MUST sing about what he sees, to delineate the truth.

That big ol’ building was a textile mill
It fed our kids and it paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
We can’t make it here anymore

There’s no national health care so the car manufacturers set up shop in Canada.  But, the medical lobby is too strong.  The people don’t even get a say.  They’re just supposed to cope.

See those pallets piled up on the loading dock
They’re just gonna set there till they rot
‘Cause there’s nothing to ship, nothing to pack
Just busted concrete and rusted tracks
Empty storefronts around the square
There’s a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere
You don’t come down here unless you’re looking to score
We can’t make it here anymore

That would be a TV show.  Endless images of the detritus left behind when the American companies with headquarters offshore move their production to somewhere where the public has no choice, where they’re willing to work for pennies under terrible conditions to feed their families.  All done supposedly hands-off, it’s the LOCAL bosses who are responsible.  And, lock up those on drugs without jobs.  Ever think of giving them a gig, some OPPORTUNITY?

Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are working two jobs and living in cars
Minimum wage don’t pay for a roof, don’t pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far $5.15 an hour will go
Take a part time job at one of your stores
I bet you can’t make it here anymore

There’s no longer a fresh start in America.  Congress gave the banks a pass.  The new bankruptcy bill will have you repaying debts for the rest of your life, even if some drunk hit you and you were in the hospital for a year and lost your job and are unable to work again.  And, the big companies will go out of business if there’s a living wage.  But what about the lives of those WORKING in the stores?

There’s a high school girl with a bourgeois dream
Just like the pictures in the magazine
She found on the floor of the laundromat
A woman with kids can forget all that
And if she comes up pregnant what’ll she do
Forget the career, forget about school
Can she live on faith? Live on hope?
High on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it’s way too late to just say no
You can’t make it here anymore

Too many of the anti-abortion crusaders have HAD abortions.  Or their kids have.  But now, even if you want an abortion you can’t get one.  The clinics have shut down, the doctors afraid of being shot by zealots.  And NO ONE likes abortion.  But read "Freakonomics".  Legal abortion reduced the crime rate, never mind improved the life of those not burdened by unwanted children.  But science is passe.

Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I’m in
Should I hate ’em for having our jobs today
No I hate the men sent the jobs away
I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They’ve never known want, they’ve never know need
Their shit don’t stink and their kids won’t bleed
Their kids won’t bleed in their damn little war
And we can’t make it here anymore

I’ll believe in the war when Barbara and Jenna Bush go.

But hell, why should they, their FATHER didn’t!

The government used to be OF the people.  Now it’s of a ruling class, using it to their own advantage.  If you don’t believe things are topsy-turvy, you’re one of the winners, ignoring the losers.

Will work for food
Will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks
So let ’em eat jellybeans, let ’em eat cake
Let ’em eat shit, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force, or join the Corps
If they can’t make it here anymore

How many kids got shot in Iraq because they couldn’t make it over here and they went in the Corps for the GIG?

Are those in the Ivy League schools, the WINNERS, having to do this?

Shit, start a draft and watch the war end instantaneously.  But, better to put the burden on the shoulders of those without a voice.  Nobody cares about them.

And that’s how it is
And that’s what we got
If the President wants to admit it or not
You can read it in the paper
Read it on the wall
Hear it on the wind
If you’re listening at all

You won’t find the truth on Fox News.  Not in the newspapers only running wire stories.  When confronted with violating the Constitution the President goes on OFFENSE, figuring this is the best DEFENSE!  We’re spreading democracy overseas, but here at home you want to be SAFE don’t you, you’re willing to give up your rights, RIGHT?  But no one asked you or me, we didn’t get a vote, they’re deciding for us.  They say they’re protecting us, but Katrina showed their competence is in serious question.  The nuclear plants and the ports are still unguarded half a decade after 9/11, but we should trust those in charge.  BULLSHIT!

Get out of that limo
Look us in the eye
Call us on the cell phone
Tell us all why

Those town meetings Bush held in the run-up to the last election weren’t for us, they were for the pre-screened, the believers.  How come he can’t answer our questions.  Can’t anybody answer our questions?  Aren’t we ENTITLED to answers?

In Dayton, Ohio
Or Portland, Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains
That’s done closed down along with the school
And the hospital and the swimming pool
And dust devils dance in the noonday heat
There’s rats in the alley
And trash in the street
Gang graffiti on a boxcar door
We can’t make it here anymore

A friend said to equate "taxes" with "services".

The libraries have no books, and they’re barely open.

Hell, those not using the facilities shouldn’t be burdened by the cost.  Hell, I don’t have any kids, I shouldn’t pay for SCHOOLS!  Those without cars shouldn’t pay for roads.  Everybody should go to parochial school and grow their own food and get a gun to protect themselves.  You call this a SOCIETY?  I don’t.

The above song is entitled "We Can’t Make It Here".  By James McMurtry.

James McMurtry couldn’t make it in the major label system.  But he didn’t give up.  He didn’t go straight.  He soldiered on.

"We Can’t Make It Here" wasn’t on his first record, it came fifteen years on.  THIS is artist development.  Developing your craft so you can deliver your message articulately, in a way that moves people.

If you’re not moved by "We Can’t Make It Here", you have no ears.

Oh, the lyrics are great.  But it’s the way the music is circular, like a round, that enraptures you.

Go to "We Can’t Make It Here"  Download the acoustic version.  Oh, the electric one is good, but it’s not TRANSCENDENT!  It doesn’t make your bones rattle, it doesn’t make your brain cogitate, it doesn’t remind you of the power of Bob Dylan.

James McMurtry does not have the best voice.  His guitar-playing is not equivalent to Clapton.  But music ain’t about skill, but INSPIRATION!

If the Grammys had any balls, they’d feature James McMurtry singing "We Can’t Make It Here" on his acoustic as the opening of their show.

But they won’t do this.  Half of the country is Republican.  CBS operates under the aegis of the FCC.  Risk can’t be taken.  Safety is key.

Well, I say SAFETY LAST!  If you don’t stand for something, you don’t stand for ANYTHING AT ALL!

A record of the year is one that sounds as fresh twenty years on as it did when it was cut.  Something like Bob Dylan’s "The Times They Are A-Changin’".  Then again, that didn’t win a Grammy either.

Read the Village Voice poll.  Go to the newspaper and read the ravings of the pop critic who’s been to so many shows he can no longer hear or think straight.

Or go to the Web.  Where the real artists are giving their music away for free.  Because it’s the only avenue they’ve got to get their message across.

There you’ll find music better than all the bullshit being purveyed by businessmen.

The revolution has come to music.  I’m waiting for it to come to politics.

The Internet now gives people the means.  But it’s songs like "We Can’t Make It Here" that provide the inspiration, the DIRECTION!

James McMurtry is a guiding light.

If you think I’m full of shit download the song and listen yourself.  If you don’t think "We Can’t Make It Here" is more powerful, more meaningful than ANYTHING released on a major label today, you don’t know shit.