Whitey On The Moon

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I was thinking of writing an essay (okay, a blog post) on Darondo's Let My People Go, focusing on society's misplaced priorities, encapsulated by the space program:

Man builds a rocket ship, / Take you to the moon, /
A billion dollar mission, just to bring back a piece of rock, /
We got starvation, panic over the land, /
And here's a fool in a rocketship, / Trying to be Superman.

Can anyone help me find some other examples in popular music like this? Thanks in advance (My first "New Question," by the way, so... Hi dere).

― Billy Pilgrim, Monday, 26 February 2007 16:15 (eighteen years ago)

"hurricane annie ripped the ceiling of a church and killed everyone inside / you turn on the telly and every other story is tellin' you somebody died / sister killed her baby 'cause she couldn't afford to feed it and we're sending people to the moon / in september my cousin tried reefer for the very first time now he's doing horse, it's june" - prince, "sign o the times"

― fact checking cuz, Monday, 26 February 2007 17:10 (eighteen years ago)

Excellent, thanks. It's such a great metaphor, I know people have used it tons of times, I just drew a blank this morning trying to conjure some up.

― Billy Pilgrim, Monday, 26 February 2007 17:16 (eighteen years ago)

Kinda:

A'makin' guns. I'm God!
A'makin' bombs. I'm God!
A'makin' gas. I'm God!
A'makin' freak machines. I'm God!
Birth control pills, I'm God!
Killed Indians who discovered him. I'm God!
Killed Japanese with the A-bomb. I'm God!
Killed and still killin' black people. I'm God!
Enslaving the earth. I'm God!
Done went to the moon. I'm God!

Last Poets, White Man's Got a God Complex.

― Billy Pilgrim, Monday, 26 February 2007 17:45 (eighteen years ago)

Definitely: Puttin' People on the Moon, by Drive-By Truckers:

"Double Digit unemployment, TVA be shutting soon
While over there in Huntsville, They puttin' people on the moon" **

I wrote this one in the van, shortly before we completed the album. Sort of my latest, and best attempt at a song that I've written and re written at least a dozen times since the mid-80's.
This song deals with "rocket envy", a non-diagnosable psychosis affecting people in an economically depressed community, located just 60 or so miles from The NASA Space and Rocket Center.

― Billy Pilgrim, Monday, 26 February 2007 17:50 (eighteen years ago)

"Eve of Destruction" is corny, but on the money: "You may leave here for four days in space. But when you return, it's the same old place."

― dad a, Monday, 26 February 2007 19:19 (eighteen years ago)

space program gettin unfairly/disproportionately hated on non shockah

(NASA budget = less than 1% of fed budget)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 26 February 2007 19:22 (eighteen years ago)

well, this probably wouldn't have been a very good lyric:

"sister killed her baby 'cause she couldn't afford to feed it and we're building bridges we really don't need in peoria."

― fact checking cuz, Monday, 26 February 2007 19:34 (eighteen years ago)

thanks all
http://howlongittakes.blogspot.com/2007/03/let-my-people-go.html

― Billy Pilgrim, Friday, 2 March 2007 16:21 (eighteen years ago)

I think there's a James Brown song with a more humorous take on the same theme. I'm blanking on the name -- something like "Rocket #9"

― Hurting 2, Friday, 2 March 2007 16:30 (eighteen years ago)

I thought I'd heard a James Brown song too, sure of it actually, but I couldn't get a google search right. "on the moon" "the moon" "man on the moon" etc get a ton of hits that don't help

― Billy Pilgrim, Friday, 2 March 2007 16:33 (eighteen years ago)

I'm sure it exists - might be a JBs tune officially though.

― Hurting 2, Friday, 2 March 2007 16:35 (eighteen years ago)

my mum's husband informed me that the gil scott heron song with this name was racist, when he heard it playing in my car.

― stevie, Friday, 2 March 2007 18:11 (eighteen years ago)

Gil Scott Heron has disenfranchised a lot of white people.

― Hurting 2, Friday, 2 March 2007 18:13 (eighteen years ago)

And he's soft on communism

― Billy Pilgrim, Friday, 2 March 2007 18:48 (eighteen years ago)

shakey mo to thread

― and what, Friday, 2 March 2007 19:02 (eighteen years ago)

In the name of fairness and balance (courtesy of The Rainmakers):

Give a man a free house and he'll bust out the windows
Put his family on food stamps, now he's a big spender
no food on the table and the bills ain't paid
'Cause he spent it on cigarettes and P.G.A.
They'll turn us all into beggars 'cause they're easier to please
They're feeding our people that Government Cheese

Give a man free food and he'll figure out a way
To steal more than he can eat 'cause he doesn't have to pay
Give a woman free kids and you'll find them in the dirt
Learning how to carry on the family line of work
It's the man in the White House, the man under the steeple
Passing out drugs to the American people
I don't believe in anything, nothing is free
They're feeding our people the Government Cheese

― Pye Poudre, Friday, 2 March 2007 19:08 (eighteen years ago)

Best (most outrageously offensive) line is the one about how if you help a poor woman raise her kids, "you'll find them in the dirt, learning how to carry on the family line of work."

I find the honesty refreshing, 'cuz in my experience, children who aren't allowed to starve almost always grow up to be dirty whores...

― Pye Poudre, Friday, 2 March 2007 19:24 (eighteen years ago)

That song just proves that we shouldn't give women free kids. I mean, if we as men are going to allow them the miracle that is children, and do basically all the work, we might as well charge them.

― filthy dylan, Friday, 2 March 2007 20:16 (eighteen years ago)

I beat you here ethan

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 2 March 2007 20:18 (eighteen years ago)

I was thinking some Neil Young song - this is all I could remember, & it kinda fits, but there's another that's in the back of my mind:

We got a thousand points of light For the homeless man
We got a kinder, gentler, Machine gun hand
We got department stores and toilet paper
Got styrofoam boxes for the ozone layer
Got a man of the people, says keep hope alive
Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive.

― I know my name is dave, Sunday, 4 March 2007 02:30 (eighteen years ago)

I wrote about this in my second book, I think:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0306807416/ref=sib_dp_srch_bod/103-7550218-1307818?v=search-inside&keywords=into+the+void+gaye&go.x=13&go.y=12

― xhuxk, Sunday, 4 March 2007 05:25 (eighteen years ago)

You certainly did! Can't believe I forgot Inner City Blues & Ball of Confusion

― Billy Pilgrim, Sunday, 4 March 2007 14:11 (eighteen years ago)

You should read the last graph of the previous page, too (provides some historical context):

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0306807416/ref=sib_dp_srch_bod/103-7550218-1307818?v=search-inside&keywords=bloodstar+zager&go.x=5&go.y=11

― xhuxk, Sunday, 4 March 2007 15:48 (eighteen years ago)

but there have been trillions spent on social programs, much more than nasa's budget. this makes no sense. admittedly nasa's current vision is a joke but it's straw man argument, there is plenty of money to fund both.

― keythkeyth, Sunday, 4 March 2007 18:13 (eighteen years ago)

It's not just about money - it's also about equity and priorities. In education, for example, quite a bit of money is thrown at education, but it's not distributed fairly or to the places that need it - affluent school districts typically get much more funding per student than inner city schools - because the residents in affluent areas demand resources for their kids educations. But they don't also demand it for the school districts that really need it. So there's money flowing, just not to where it's needed most.

― I know my name is dave, Sunday, 4 March 2007 20:04 (eighteen years ago)

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