|
| |
| |
All Things Brewer & Shipley |
|
| |
I don't want to die In Georgia,
oh no |
|
| |
|
1971 concert banter |
|
Michael: |
“We'd
like to do a song that sprang from our basic fear of the deep south.
Actually our fears were unwarranted." |
|
Tom:
|
"Your fears were
unwarranted. I still expect to be buried in a swamp down there." |
|
Michael: |
(laughing) "No man. We met a lot of really nice people down there."
|
|
Tom: |
(in southern
drawl)
"Real nice!" |
|
Michael: |
"We had to
go to Atlanta one time, and Tom was really afraid”. |
|
Tom: |
“Horrified”.
|
|
Michael: |
“We were flying in, he said ‘Ah man, I don’t want to die in Georgia’.....
We wrote
a song about it." |
|
|
| |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
|
| |
"Don't Want To Die In
Georgia," from Brewer & Shipley's 'Tarkio' album, is another song about
freedom and
the restrictions placed upon
it circa 1970. "Our music has always been somewhat autobiographical,
reflecting our own experiences at the time," explains Brewer. "Our first
three albums are like mini-time capsules in retrospect. Vietnam was still
raging, and a lot of social unrest."
"Tom and I were traveling all
over the heartland, and especially in the South, we pretty much were living
Easy Rider. 'Cause here we were, a couple of guys wearing Nehru shirts,
beads, and you didn't see a whole lot of that in those days. We really did
have to pick and choose where we stopped to get something to eat or check
into a motel or get gas." One such experience inspired "Don't Want to Die in
Georgia": "One time we were doing something in Atlanta. John Lloyd, a black
man who was a regional representative for Kama Sutra, was showing us around.
There was so much tension, just because of the way we looked. And here we
are with a black man too, and everybody knows how they were regarded, in
those days especially. 'Don't Want to Die in Georgia' was sort of a metaphor
for 'don't want to die anywhere,' really. It just happened to be Georgia.
"A lot of people would say
a lot of that stuff was very political. But to us, it wasn't political at
all. It was just social commentary, rather than political commentary. And
even though we had social commentary, we also had spiritual commentary.
That's probably why we're glad the message came across without slapping
anybody in the face, or trying to cram anything down anybody's throat. We
were just reflecting our own views. We've always pushed love as the only
answer we know of that might fix things. I don't know how that's ever gonna
happen, but that's what we think." |
|
| |
|
|
| |
Tarkio |
|
| |
|
|
| |
All Things Brewer & Shipley |
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
