A Talk: Bluesology / Black History / Jaws / The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Live) Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson - “A Talk: Bluesology / Black History / Jaws / The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Live)”
[Vocals/Written By: Gil Scott-Heron]
[Intro (“Bluesology”): Gil Scott-Heron]
Certain people, though have contributed such a great deal to the Blues and to my understanding of it that I have named particular poems after them and particular phases of the blues after them—like, Joe Williams always sounded like a horn when he was doing them Big-City, Big-Band Blues, so I had the Joe Williams Blues down, which was big-band sound. “Going to Chicago! Sorry, but I can’t take you! DU-du-du-DU-du-du!” See that, I’ma write that down. Joe Williams. Yeah, and then, like, on the other end of that spectrum, I had, like, the Jimmy Reed Blues. Jimmy Reed got you into geometry, you see, ‘cause he delivered his Blues from an angle. And Jimmy Reed’s Blues would be something like, um... “Bright lights and big city. Them gone to my baby’s head.” Say, “Yeah, Jimmy Reed.” Jimmy Reed, you see, like... about four doubles into the evening, Jimmy Reed became a genius. Soon as you got right here, you say, “Yeah, play that again. That sumbitch alright tonight.” Um, aheh. This is how Jimmy Reed is the hero of everybody who stays up from one o’clock on. ‘Cause his stuff start to make more and more sense around closing time. Uh, and with all the different kinds of Blues I was getting into, I started to do some research on it ‘cause I... the more I heard and the more I, I, I, I checked it out, the, the more I wanted to know. So I found out that, uh, a lot of poets had worked on different phases of the Blues back during the Harlem Renaissance—uh, Langston Hughes or Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Sterling Brown, Jean Toomer. These people were, were Blues poets. And they polished this, this, this art form to the, to the, to the degree of that it became scientific in its approach. And I... and the more research I did, the more I found out that there was a two-hundred year legacy of poetry that had been fashioned along the ideas that correlated with the Blues, that went from 1789, that chronicled our life and our life experiences here in this country. And the more I found out about our own history, the more I was disappointed about how little we had been informed of our history. So it made me want to put a poem together to explain what had been overlooked. And the poem was called “Black History.” It said:
[Verse 1 (“Black History”): Gil Scott-Heron]
I was wondering about our yesterdays, and started digging through the rubble
And, to say the least, somebody went through a hell of a lot of trouble
To make sure that, when we looked things up, we wouldn't fair too well
And we would come up with totally unreliable portraits of ourselves
But I’ve compiled what few facts I could—I mean, such as they are
To see if we could shed a little bit of light, and this is what I got so far:
First, white folks discovered Africa, and they claimed it fair and square
Cecil Rhodes couldn't have been robbing nobody ‘cause, hell, he said, “Wasn’t nobody there”
White folks brought all the civilization. They said wasn’t none around
‘Cause how could these folks be civilized when they didn’t see nobody writing nothing down?
And just to prove all their suspicions, well, it didn't take too long
They found out there were whole groups of people, in plain sight
Running around without much clothes on—that's right!
There was women and men and young folks and old folks. Well, righteous folks just covered their eyes
And no time was spent considering the environment. They just said, “Hell no. This here, this, this ain’t civilized”
And another way they knew the folks was backwards—or, at least this is how we were taught
Is that, “unlike the very civilized people of Europe,” these black groups actually fought!
And, yes, there were some crude implements, and, yes, they had primitive art
And, yes, they were masters of hunting and fishing, and courtesy came from the heart
And, yes, there was love and medicine, religion, intertribal communication by drum
But no papers and pencils and other utensils and, hell, these folks never even heard of a gun
So this is why the colonies came to stabilize the land
The Dark Continent had copper and gold, and the discoverers had themselves a plan
They would discover all the places with promise—you didn't need no titles and deeds
And then you would appoint people to make everything legal, to sanction the trickery and the greed
And back in the jungle, if the natives got restless, well, you call that “guerrilla attack”
And you never described that some folks might have got wise and decided that they was gonna fight back
But, still, we are victims of word games—semantics is always a bitch
Places once called “underdeveloped” and “backwards,” they now call them “mineral-rich”
But, still, it seems like the game goes on, with unity kept just beyond our reach
Libya and Egypt used to be in Africa. They've been moved to the Middle East
There are examples galore, I assure you. But if interpreting was left up to me
I'd be sure every time folks knew this version wasn't mine, which is why it is called “His story”
[Vocals/Written By: Gil Scott-Heron]
[Intro (“Bluesology”): Gil Scott-Heron]
Certain people, though have contributed such a great deal to the Blues and to my understanding of it that I have named particular poems after them and particular phases of the blues after them—like, Joe Williams always sounded like a horn when he was doing them Big-City, Big-Band Blues, so I had the Joe Williams Blues down, which was big-band sound. “Going to Chicago! Sorry, but I can’t take you! DU-du-du-DU-du-du!” See that, I’ma write that down. Joe Williams. Yeah, and then, like, on the other end of that spectrum, I had, like, the Jimmy Reed Blues. Jimmy Reed got you into geometry, you see, ‘cause he delivered his Blues from an angle. And Jimmy Reed’s Blues would be something like, um... “Bright lights and big city. Them gone to my baby’s head.” Say, “Yeah, Jimmy Reed.” Jimmy Reed, you see, like... about four doubles into the evening, Jimmy Reed became a genius. Soon as you got right here, you say, “Yeah, play that again. That sumbitch alright tonight.” Um, aheh. This is how Jimmy Reed is the hero of everybody who stays up from one o’clock on. ‘Cause his stuff start to make more and more sense around closing time. Uh, and with all the different kinds of Blues I was getting into, I started to do some research on it ‘cause I... the more I heard and the more I, I, I, I checked it out, the, the more I wanted to know. So I found out that, uh, a lot of poets had worked on different phases of the Blues back during the Harlem Renaissance—uh, Langston Hughes or Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Sterling Brown, Jean Toomer. These people were, were Blues poets. And they polished this, this, this art form to the, to the, to the degree of that it became scientific in its approach. And I... and the more research I did, the more I found out that there was a two-hundred year legacy of poetry that had been fashioned along the ideas that correlated with the Blues, that went from 1789, that chronicled our life and our life experiences here in this country. And the more I found out about our own history, the more I was disappointed about how little we had been informed of our history. So it made me want to put a poem together to explain what had been overlooked. And the poem was called “Black History.” It said:
[Verse 1 (“Black History”): Gil Scott-Heron]
I was wondering about our yesterdays, and started digging through the rubble
And, to say the least, somebody went through a hell of a lot of trouble
To make sure that, when we looked things up, we wouldn't fair too well
And we would come up with totally unreliable portraits of ourselves
But I’ve compiled what few facts I could—I mean, such as they are
To see if we could shed a little bit of light, and this is what I got so far:
First, white folks discovered Africa, and they claimed it fair and square
Cecil Rhodes couldn't have been robbing nobody ‘cause, hell, he said, “Wasn’t nobody there”
White folks brought all the civilization. They said wasn’t none around
‘Cause how could these folks be civilized when they didn’t see nobody writing nothing down?
And just to prove all their suspicions, well, it didn't take too long
They found out there were whole groups of people, in plain sight
Running around without much clothes on—that's right!
There was women and men and young folks and old folks. Well, righteous folks just covered their eyes
And no time was spent considering the environment. They just said, “Hell no. This here, this, this ain’t civilized”
And another way they knew the folks was backwards—or, at least this is how we were taught
Is that, “unlike the very civilized people of Europe,” these black groups actually fought!
And, yes, there were some crude implements, and, yes, they had primitive art
And, yes, they were masters of hunting and fishing, and courtesy came from the heart
And, yes, there was love and medicine, religion, intertribal communication by drum
But no papers and pencils and other utensils and, hell, these folks never even heard of a gun
So this is why the colonies came to stabilize the land
The Dark Continent had copper and gold, and the discoverers had themselves a plan
They would discover all the places with promise—you didn't need no titles and deeds
And then you would appoint people to make everything legal, to sanction the trickery and the greed
And back in the jungle, if the natives got restless, well, you call that “guerrilla attack”
And you never described that some folks might have got wise and decided that they was gonna fight back
But, still, we are victims of word games—semantics is always a bitch
Places once called “underdeveloped” and “backwards,” they now call them “mineral-rich”
But, still, it seems like the game goes on, with unity kept just beyond our reach
Libya and Egypt used to be in Africa. They've been moved to the Middle East
There are examples galore, I assure you. But if interpreting was left up to me
I'd be sure every time folks knew this version wasn't mine, which is why it is called “His story”
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