Tag Archives: music video

Muse: The Uprising – An Anti-Globalist Song

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Muse – THE UPRISING – Song writer: Matthew Bellamy

Bellamy, who sings and plays great acoustic and electric guitar, is also a gifted pianist steeped in classical music. You can hear classical influences in the long stretches he quotes from Chopin on this album and in frequent quasi- Baroque interludes.  Youtube also has clips of Bellamy playing Rachmaninoff and Liszt on the piano, as well as  a Villa-Lobos etude for the guitar and Tarrega’s beautiful Recuerdos de la Alhambra

The political positions Bellamy takes are just as interesting as his art. Perhaps, he’s come to them from the experience of having an uncle murdered by the IRA.  Bellamy considers 9-11 a false-flag operation, thinks the call for war with Iran “takes things to a Nazi level”, and refers to the CIA mind-control operation MK Ultra on the same album as Uprising.

A remarkable and brave young artist, first, to bring these notions into popular music, and then, to stand firmly behind  his political convictions in public interviews.

(Bellamy says Uprising was inspired by the G20 protests in London in 2008)

Paranoia is in bloom,
The PR transmissions will resume,
They”ll try to push drugs that keep us all dumbed down,
And hope that we will never see the truth around
(So come on) Continue reading →

Happy Birthday, Johann Sebastian Bach

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Norwegian soprano Sissel Kyrkjebo (also excellent as a cross-over singer) sings Bach’s well-known Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (BWV 645). I originally had a Michelangeli performance of the D Minor Chaconne up here, but though that felt right as a general reflection on the state of the economic world, it was a tad somber for the vernal equinox, March 21, also Bach’s birthday……

[Correction: this year the vernal equinox was actually on March 20, which makes my greeting belated twice over]

…so I exchanged it for one of the great sacred cantatas.  I think Bach would approve of Sissel’s upbeat version: Sleepers wake, for night is flying…..

The word “sleepers” is a reference to the parable of the ten virigins in the Bible (Matthew 25: 1-13) .

In a bridal party, ten virgins awaiting the bridegroom fall asleep. Five of them have run out of oil in their lamps and ask the others to give them some at the last minute. The parable is pretty fitting for the times. For “oil,” just substitute savings, hard assets, land, precious metals, undervalued stocks.

….And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves…..