Rip.

Genuine lol

Swing low chariot, come down easy,
Taxi to the terminal zone,
Cut your engines and cool your wings
And let me make it to the telephone.

Los Angeles give me Norfolk Virginia,
Tidewater four ten O nine,
Tell the folks back home this is the Promised Land callin'
And the po’ boy's on the line.

^ Nice, appropriate selection, Ribbons! I didn't know that song.

I was about eleven when I picked up this single in a second-hand shop, and as children do with a song they like, just played it over and over and over again. I loved the guitar and the mysterious-sounding place name: Memphis Tennessee.



Decades later, I use the song in my English language classes: two bars in, students start nodding their heads and tapping their feet. The rhythm is still infectious, and I've come to realize just how good the lyrics are. In just 16 lines CB tells a complete story, squeezing in some extra, but evocative details on the way (the phone boy, the Mississippi Bridge) and giving us a surprise twist as well. It's such a short song but there's no repetitive chorus; in terms of lyrics, CB has used his 2:19 minutes to the max. That's genius!
R.I.P. Chuck Berry :(

Martin McGuinness: Sinn Féin politician dies aged 66 - BBC News

I must admit, I'm not sure how to react to this. I mean, yes, in later life he was part of the peace process in Northern Ireland, but for a long time before that he was a killer, a major figure in the IRA, and responsible for I don't know how many deaths. As a politician, he refused to acknowledge his ties to the IRA and in so doing left, and leaves, many families without closure as he refused to share what he knew about the remaining "disappeared", those people executed by the IRA and whose bodies have never been found.

He worked for peace, yes, but did he do this for its own sake or to try to reinvent himself and change his image? I see a lot of tributes to him now that he's passed, and I have to think of those who sit at home looking at pictures of loved ones murdered by the IRA and wonder how they feel? Are they glad he's dead, or do they now mourn that they will never be able to bury their loved ones?

Does he deserve the accolades, and is it right to forget and/or forgive his past? They say the good men do is soon forgotten but the evil lives on, but in this case is not the opposite true, and is it right that it should be that way?

Comments welcome.

Boston drummer John "Sib" Hashian dead at 67. RIP and thanks for the winter of 1976.

Just discovering this guy through a tribute on the radio. He's great.

Arthur Blythe, Jazz Saxophonist, Dead at 76 | Pitchfork

You might want to check out Island Universe on Spotify