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What About Me

Quicksilver Messenger Service
Language: English


Quicksilver Messenger Service

List of versions


Related Songs

Ohio
(Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
The War Is Over
(Phil Ochs)
Instant Sentence (Talking Law and Order Blues)
(Malvina Reynolds)


(Dino Valente)
December, 1970

Canzone che apre e dà il titolo al quinto album di Dino Valenti e soci.‎
Scritta da Jesse Oris Farrow, pseudonimo di Dino Valenti, pseudonimo di Chet Powers.‎
Interpretata anche da Richie Havens

 l’incredibile ‎copertina...
l’incredibile ‎copertina...


Un attacco senza mezzi termini all’America capitalista, imperialista e militarista degli anni di Nixon ‎e della guerra in Vietnam. Nei versi che recitano “Se scendi in piazza per ciò in cui credi, preparati ‎ad essere ucciso” e “Mi sento uno straniero nel paese in cui sono nato” c’è tutta la rabbia dei ‎Quicksilver e di tutti i giovani americani per gli assassinii di Stato avvenuti alla Kent University nel ‎maggio di quello stesso anno (e si vedano al proposito le molte canzoni presenti sul sito, da Ohio ‎a Driving Through Mythical America a The Knife).‎

(Bartleby)


The aftermath of Kent State and Jackson State even had some of the hippie bands of San Francisco talking about their distrust of the government and expressing more anti-war themes. One such case was Quicksilver Messenger Service.

QMS member, Dino Valente penned a number of songs under different pseudonyms that expressed hippie hopefulness like Get Together that the Youngbloods turned into a hit. But in 1970 Valente penned What About Me in the QMS LP of the same name about the disgust and distrust of the Vietnam era America that still rings true in America of the Bush League elite today.

(from Vietnam Era Antiwar Music, where you can listen and download the song in RAM format.)
You poisoned my sweet water.
You cut down my green trees.
The food you fed my children
Was the cause of their disease.

My world is slowly fallin' down
And the airs not good to breathe.
And those of us who care enough,
We have to do something.......

Oh.......oh What you gonna do about me?
Oh.......oh What you gonna do about me?

Your newspapers,
They just put you on.
They never tell you
The whole story.

They just put your
Young ideas down.
I was wonderin' could this be the end
Of your pride and glory?

Oh.......oh What you gonna do about me?
Oh.......oh What you gonna do about me?

I work in your factory.
I study in your schools.
I fill your penitentiaries.
And your military too!

And I feel the future trembling,
As the word is passed around.
"If you stand up for what you do believe,
Be prepared to be shot down."

Oh.......oh What you gonna do about me?
Oh.......oh What you gonna do about me?

And I feel like a stranger
In the land where I was born
And I live like an outlaw.
An' I'm always on the run

An Im always getting busted
And I got to take a stand
I believe the revolution
Must be mighty close at hand

Oh.......oh What you gonna do about me?
Oh.......oh What you gonna do about me?

I smoke marijuana
But I cant get behind your wars.
And most of what I do believe
Is against most of your laws

I'm a fugitive from injustice
But I'm goin' to be free.
Cause your rules and regulations
They dont do the thing for me

Oh.......oh What you gonna do about me?
Oh.......oh What you gonna do about me?

And I feel like a stranger
In the land where I was born
And I live just like an outlaw.
An' I'm always on the run.

2005/8/18 - 18:02


Glad to see there is a page dedicated to anti war songs, esp the sickest of all wars = NAM:)!
Thank you very much and in memory of my 4 innocent brothers and sisters miserably slain in cold blood by the Fascist National Guard of that time:(

nedkelly - 2017/3/30 - 16:55




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