somehow i missed that today is the international day of peace. i’m about to go to bed but want to at least pay some hommage to it; thanks to clark’s picks to remind me! he has a video on his blog of peter, paul and mary singing “there but for fortune“. it’s a song i grew up with, one that still speaks deeply to my heart. here are the lyrics, written by great american folk singer and activist phil ochs:
show me the prison, show me the jail
show me the prisoner, whose life has gone stale
and i’ll show you a young man
with so many reasons why
and there but for fortune, go you or i ….show me the alley, show me the train
show me the hobo, who sleeps out in the rain
and i’ll show you a young man
with so many reasons why
and there but for fortune, go you or i …show me the whiskey, stains on the floor
show me the drunkard, as he stumbles out the door
and i’ll show you a young man
with so many reasons why
and there but for fortune go you or i …show me the country, where the bombs had to fall
show me the ruins of the buildings, once so tall
and i’ll show you a young land
with so many reasons why
and there but for fortune go you and i, you and i.
image by kptyson
Wow!
Thanks for reminding me of that song!!!
All that effort for peace that seems to have happened in a distant age, some other lost eon…
I’ve recently embraced the challenge of writing an eleven post series on critical steps we must take to enable global peace — http://amzuri.wordpress.com/path-toward-peace/
Love to have some of your comments !!!
Alexander M Zoltai’s last blog post..Path Toward Peace – Step Three
Thank you for mentioning my post about Phil Ochs’ beautiful song.
There aren’t very many people around like Phil, Harry Chapin or Pete Seeger, who made it their life’s mission to create peace in the world.
Clark’s last blog post..There But For Fortune: Peter Paul & Mary, Phil Ochs
@alex and @chris looks like we’re from the same generation …
i think there are lots of artists nowadays that work on social change, they just do it differently than the ones we’ve already mentioned (and we can add joan baez, bob dylan, woodie guthrie, etc. etc.). i actually just wrote about one on my other blog, here http://www.alphablogs.net/article/canada-9-5-in-september-all-about-creativity/
I honestly don’t know the song, maybe because I am not from the same generation. But the lyrics are great, the composer seems very amazing.
I’v ever read a post about peace. something made me very impressed is ” irration caused all of the war and conflict in the world”. so peace really needs ration. personally human’s stupidest thoughts is to start war. bloody, yelling…. nothing beneficial.