In fall 2020 Van Morrison and Eric Clapton released songs protesting lockdowns, describing the damage the economic shutdowns were causing and focused attack on our freedoms. A host of articles referenced on my blog describe the damage they were referring to.
On 9/18/20 Van Morrison announced three songs:
- Born To Be Free
- As I Walked Out
- No More Lockdowns
Eric Clapton also released a song:
- Stand and Deliver
For reasons you can easily figure out for yourself, which I will not state explicitly, the songs were trashed in public. I will not link to or summarize the articles complimenting the songs because they get more political than I choose.
Before going into further discussion of the songs, with links to Amazon and some highlights of the lyrics, here are four out of dozens of articles trashing them:
- 9/25/20 – Rolling Stone – Van Morrison Has Been Complaining For Decades. This Time It Could Be Harmful.
- 10/23/20 – Rock Cellar Magazine – Van Morrison Shares “No More Lockdown,” the Third and Final in His Series of Aggressively “Anti-Lockdown Protest Songs”.
- 12/21/20 – Los Angeles times – Eric Clapton’s anti-lockdown protest song by Van Morrison is totally worth protesting.
- 1/6/21 – Belfast Telegraph – Van Morrison’s Covid protest songs “worst of 2020”.
Merely from the titles of the articles, you can tell how much venom was poured out on the songs.
A hint of what the self-appointed critics did not like:
As I walked out all the streets were empty
The government said everyone should stay home
And they spread fear and loathing and no hope for the future
Not many did question this very strange move
After reading several articles, including some that were favorable, I wasn’t going to look at the songs any further. However, I decided to at least take a quick look. After I listened to Born To Be Free, I looked up the lyrics and listened again. Then I was intrigued and listened to all four songs, following along with the lyrics.
If you read my blog and especially if you got this far in this particular post, you will enjoy the songs.
Born To Be Free
By the way, all four of the songs are available for a mere $0.89. This one is available at Amazon at the link:
On the government being quite happy to use the pandemic as an excuse to grab power unto itself:
Don’t need the government cramping my style
Give them an inch, they take a mile
Take you in with a phony smile, wouldn’t you agree
There is an allusion to the Berlin Wall. If your memory goes back that far, you will recall it was an enforced separation of communist East Germany from free West Germany.
Intriguing comparison. It will get more blunt later.
The new normal is not normal
It’s no kind of normal at all
Everyone seems to have amnesia
Just trying to remember the Berlin Wall
To refresh your memory: Soldiers in towers with machine guns, and automated machine guns (for when the guards didn’t want to shoot), and trained guard dogs, and minefields prevented East Germans from fleeing repressive communism and seeking freedom.
Communist repression was so wonderful and glorious that people were willing to risk getting shot, chewed up by dogs, or blown up by mines just to reach freedom.
Think for yourself what the old ideology would be and what the new psychology might be:
Some kind of new old ideology
With new psychology
But it’s not for the benefit
Of you and me
No no no
Perhaps, just perhaps, he is hinting at collectivism or authoritarianism or governors who figured out they could push people around based on mere whim or rulers who don’t follow their own rules. Combine that with new mind games like “15 days to flatten the curve” or “out of an abundance of caution.”
He says it is not for our benefit.
Hmm. Who benefits from all those new arbitrary rules?
As I Walked Out
Available at Amazon here:
The economy shut down with massive fear and no hope:
As I walked out all the streets were empty
The government said everyone should stay home
And they spread fear and loathing and no hope for the future
Not many did question this very strange move
Song suggests serious doubts about the accuracy of what we’ve been told. Oh yeah, no questions asked or allowed. No double checking of questionable statistics or medical advice:
Then why are we not being told the truth?
By all the media outlets and the government lackeys
Why is this not big news, why is it being ignored?
Why no checks and balances, why no second opinions?
Why are they working, and why are we not?
Oh, the last line refers to government officials and health experts not having missed a single paycheck, while multiple industries have been cratered by government edict.
Closing, repeated five times:
Why are they working, and why are we not?
No More Lockdowns
Available at Amazon here:
This is perhaps the most strongly worded of the three songs.
No more lockdown
No more government overreach
No more fascist police
Disturbing our peace
Shutting down businesses. Quarantining anyone who isn’t “essential.” Anyone who is must go to work. Closing schools. Forced isolation.
Now for some theoretical discussion. Next verse addresses natural rights, which governments do not give. God gives those.
No more taking our freedom
And our God-given rights
Pretending it’s for our safety
When it’s really to enslave
Read that again. Link it to the discussion of the Magna Carta and Bill of Rights in the next song.
Then there is an entertaining reference to the thoroughly discredited study which concluded with absolute perfect scientific certainty that two bazillion people would certainly die. And that was just in England. Worldwide a quadrillion people absolutely would die and no, you can’t question the study or see the calculations.
Why?
Because it’s science. And you and I are too stupid to understand science. And the experts are experts, so shut up.
My rambling condensed into his one line:
No more Imperial College scientists makin’ up crooked facts
He raises two questions for you to ponder:
Who’s running our country?
Who’s running our world?
Examine it closely
And watch it unfurl
Close with 15 repetitions of:
No more lockdown
Stand and Deliver
Song written by Van Morrison and sung by Eric Clapton.
Available at Amazon here:
There is a video on YouTube. I couldn’t fully understand the story that the visuals were telling, so I will not link to it. It is a bit inflammatory, but then so are the lyrics. You can find it in a few seconds if you wish to see it.
Opening verse:
Stand and deliver
You let them put the fear on you
Stand and deliver
But not a word you heard was true
One of three parallel verses asks a question twice with a followup question in response to the first.
The first iteration asks twice if you choose to be kept under the thumb of government restrictions:
Do you wanna be a free man
Or do you wanna be a slave?
Then closes with this question:
Do you wanna wear these chains
Until you’re lying in the grave?
That is a challenge to stand up to the rules. A challenge to take our freedom back.
Third iteration of this structure asks a question then closes with this query:
Do you wanna make it better
Or do you wanna make it worse?
In between those structured versus is this comment, referring to the foundational documents of our freedom.
Ideas and questions implied is for us to consider the range of attacks which are underway:
Magna Carta, Bill of Rights
The constitution, what’s it worth?
You know they’re gonna grind us down, ah
Until it really hurts
Closing is odd:
Stand and deliver
Stand and deliver
Dick Turpin wore a mask too
You have to think about that for a bit.
Wikipedia explains that Dick Turpin was a highwayman, meaning a thief or robber, who lived in the early 1700s. A highway robber in two words. In the old West of the United States that would translate to a stagecoach robber.
After he was executed in April 1739 his string of thefts and murders was romanticized and he became a dashing hero.
The phrase “stand and deliver” came into being when used by highwaymen.
The thieves would stop a coach or horseman and declare “stand and deliver” meaning hand over all of your money and valuables. Implied threat is you would get shot and left for dead if you did not comply.
Looks to me like a comparison intended here is considering government imposed lockdowns and taking away people’s jobs, education, health, and wealth to be quite comparable to Dick Turpin and other highwaymen.
Listen to the song again knowing what “stand and deliver” means.
I’ve never really listened to Van Morrison and haven’t previously bought any of his songs.
I now have four.
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