The song was recorded in 1969 by pianist Les McCann and saxophonist Eddie Harris for their album, Swiss Movement, recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival. I love the lie and lie the love A-Hangin’ on, with push and shove Possession is the motivation that is hangin’ up the God-damn nation Looks like we always end up in a rut (everybody now!) Tryin’ to make it real — compared to what? C’mon baby! Slaughterhouse is killin’ hogs Twisted children killin’ frogs Poor dumb rednecks rollin’ logs Tired old lady kissin’ dogs I hate the human love of that stinking mutt (I can’t use it!) Try to make it real — compared to what? C’mon baby now! The President, he’s got his war Folks don’t know just what it’s for Nobody gives us rhyme or reason Have one doubt, they call it treason We’re chicken-feathers, all without one nut. God damn it! Tryin’ to make it real — compared to what? (Sock it to me) Church on Sunday, sleep and nod Tryin’ to duck the wrath of God Preacher’s fillin’ us with fright They all tryin’ to teach us what they think is right They really got to be some kind of nut (I can’t use it!) Tryin’ to make it real — compared to what? Where’s that bee and where’s that honey? Where’s my God and where’s my money? Unreal values, crass distortion Unwed mothers need abortion Kind of brings to mind ol’ young King Tut (He did it now) Tried to make it real — compared to what?! (Music break) Tryin’ to make it real — compared to what? (spoken) Donald Dean, Leroy Vinnegar, Benny Bailey …
Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was marching with his men to Gettysburg to hold the left flank of the Union line…when 120 mutineers were given to him and told he could shoot them by a snobby guard detail officer. Wronged by the Army bureaucracy with a gotchya! stop-loss that wouldn’t let them out of their expired enlistment contracts (sound familiar?), Chamberlain instead DOES THE RIGHT THING and ASKS them to fight one more last time for the Union. He reminds them that there is no “us” and “them” snobbery the Southern Rednecks prescribe too, only US; each one of US are human beings made in God’s image and in the final analysis: WE FIGHT FOR EACHOTHER. www.combatreform.org Those mutineers–WHO DIDN’T HAVE TO–swayed by Chamberlain’s logic and love of mankind SAVED OUR NATION that fatefull day when by the thinnest of margins they defeated an emotional Confederate attack by doing the unpredictable—fixing bayonets! and charging–when their ammunition ran out. Chamberlain’s tactical intellect and MORAL INTEGRITY won the battle. This is what being a REAL American is all about. Standing for your conscience based on FACTS. Not prejudices and hate. We need this reminder today because we have a new underclass of hate and violence-mongers masquerading as “Americans” but who have no conscience and want to live their lives based on prejudices and not any objective FACTS; steered by a dictator who creates wars for maximum corporate profits just as long as he feeds them …
Video Rating: 4 / 5
49 comments
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CrudeDude
December 6, 2012 at 5:33 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
God Dammit !
watski
December 6, 2012 at 6:13 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
The great Benny Bailey
emissaryoftheadams
December 6, 2012 at 6:48 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
spill
xvegh
December 6, 2012 at 6:49 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Compared to What!!!
Pete Dooley
December 6, 2012 at 6:59 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
One forgets how PISSED OFF we were by the time 1969 rolled around. Theme for a era… Sad so many of the problems are still so evident.
willie davis
December 6, 2012 at 7:17 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
like the song says compared to what this song says it all
angelrocket88
December 6, 2012 at 7:24 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
We’ve got all these reality/game shows on teevee now… America’s got talent… The voice…
Any one of these guys has more talent in his little finger than any of those contestants ‘ve seen, ever. Did talent just die?
For these musicians it all just flows without effort.
Brandon Frye
December 6, 2012 at 7:47 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Melting Media! Thanks a ton for reuniting me with this.
Nuwaupian
December 6, 2012 at 8:09 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Genius!
Mrphatbastard1
December 6, 2012 at 8:38 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Right fucking on! Their just too stupid to realize what the 1 per-center’s and the lack of regulation have done to this country.
CoyotePoet
December 6, 2012 at 8:52 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
SOCK IT TO ME!
Big Bar Nyc
December 6, 2012 at 9:51 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Can’t play this loud enough!
TruSciencePro
December 6, 2012 at 10:10 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
definition of cool
Joshua Levinson
December 6, 2012 at 10:13 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
WOW!
Schlub McDonald
December 6, 2012 at 10:35 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Didn’t know there was video footage of this excellent album.
markmarktarmann
December 6, 2012 at 11:31 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
even Les and Eddie didn’t really know each other. “vaguely aware of”. West and East coast separation in the 60’s was real.
Larry Parker
December 6, 2012 at 11:41 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Never ceases to amaze me how wrong people get it. If you listen to the explanation by Eugene McDaniels it is pretty much the opposite of wanting less government and regulations. Never figured out how letting corporations run the world is better than letting governments run the world which is EXACTLY what less government and regulations lead to.
Tommyknocker45
December 6, 2012 at 11:46 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
“C.mon Bennie, now!” (3:17)
thegurooo
December 6, 2012 at 12:16 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
May be for the uniqueness of Swiss made watches, Swiss movement is the term used to watches made in Switzerland.
notsydbarrett
December 6, 2012 at 12:32 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
It has been said that Eddie Harris NEVER smiled in his performances but at 6:13 he gives it up. He knew they had done something MONUMENTAL, even before the song was over.
Auntkekebaby
December 6, 2012 at 1:22 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Yeah lol
Larry Parker
December 6, 2012 at 2:15 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
If you listen to the author you would know that he was writing it about those people you espouse. youtube.com/watch?v=GC6LdIcmDQs&feature=related
ghairraigh
December 6, 2012 at 2:57 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Benny Bailey, trumpet. They did a quick ten-minute rehearsal and made that rarity, a Jazz Hit. Some of the guys had never played with each other before, in part because Benny had been living in Europe for many years.
Eric Bucher
December 6, 2012 at 3:44 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I first listened to this album back in the mid-1970’s. I never really like jazz much until I heard this album. It opened up a whole new world of music to me!
KnightOwl2006
December 6, 2012 at 3:54 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Nice speech but how free were the American Indians?
gsubrama1231
December 6, 2012 at 3:56 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Great speech by Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain! He did not have to apologize at all for preaching because what he said not only was true, but a vision for what America is all about! Freedom, and being judged by what you do and not by who your father is or what your skin color is.
robcas631
December 6, 2012 at 4:20 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I heard somewhere that before the civil war we were a compilation of states. I also read that after the civil war we became the united states. That after the war Lee worked with Union generals to establish the peace in the south. Some say our allegiance to the united states was born within resigning confederate regiments. Others say no. I’d like to know when?
TheGmodParty
December 6, 2012 at 5:18 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Best man I ever heard of.
TigerRifle1
December 6, 2012 at 5:41 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I doubt they Siske and Ebert would have done that, they knew the recently planned TV debut disqualified it from Oscar consideration.
Maty Bekele
December 6, 2012 at 5:55 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
my roommate is a grand child of this man and he is white and i am black….because of men like this we can freely live in peace and harmony. Thanks Chamberlin. Rest in Peace.
XxXxTomArayaxXxX
December 6, 2012 at 6:54 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
EPIC
incomingfire186165
December 6, 2012 at 7:51 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Whenever people ask me why I want to join the army someday, I just pull this up on YouTube and it says it all
rebel2276
December 6, 2012 at 8:37 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
General Lee never offered his sword to MG Chamberlain. He did not even offer his sword to General Grant and General Grant never asked for it, out of respect.
liverpoolmatt87
December 6, 2012 at 9:36 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I’m a brit and just want to let everyone know that it is not customary to bow infront of the queen it is voluntary. anyways this is a good film which I own on dvd this is probably the best scene out of it.
TMMQUINN2011
December 6, 2012 at 10:20 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Chamberlain was an extraordinaryly gifted thinker, tactician and leader. At the Confederate surrender Robert E. Lee offered him his sword.. a mark of the esteem in which he was regarded by North & South.
Evocati2008
December 6, 2012 at 10:23 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
General Gordon being his counterpart. So true, even R.E.Lee showed great dignity and respect when he surrendered his army, rather than it sink into a guerilla force.
MegaAstrodude
December 6, 2012 at 10:44 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@4:08,
Great movie and good acting, but this line is baloney. He obviously meant to preach.
majordani3l
December 6, 2012 at 11:25 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
…no man has to bow, no man born to royalty, here we judge you on what you do, not who your father was. Here you can be something, here is the place to build a home. But its not the land, mhm, there’s always more land. It’s the idea that we all have value, you and me…
Favorite line in the movie… something all Americans should remember. This is why if I ever meet the Queen of England or the Emperor of Japan, I would not bow, but instead, would greet them as fellow citizens of humanity.
avi614614
December 6, 2012 at 11:53 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Your so right Bush did more to ruin this great country, at every level than all of the most liberal presidents put together, obama is simply continuing what bush started, the blame is on bush for developing this cancer
KnoxSUX
December 6, 2012 at 11:53 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
No. It will become another al-Qaeda state.
dynmicpara
December 7, 2012 at 12:45 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Concur; he’s trying to remind us all not to be SNOBS.
dynmicpara
December 7, 2012 at 12:58 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
The line is what he told the men–Chamberlain was an intellectual…he wouldn’t have said “this isn’t a job, it’s an adventure!”
dynmicpara
December 7, 2012 at 1:04 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
They need to do some Oscar revisions…Kirk Douglas should have got an Oscar for Spartacus…Daniel Craig for Casino Royale, too.
Rimasta1
December 7, 2012 at 1:51 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
To everyone is the South, if you watched this movie even General Longstreet said they should have freed the slaves THEN fired on Fort Sumter. He also said to the British military attache that the British gvm’t should NEVER align itself with the confederacy with the institution of slavery. Basically, the south did not have the moral high ground although concerns about increasing federal power may have been warranted.
Johnchuk3
December 7, 2012 at 2:13 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
FREE LIBYA!
ThePetronius
December 7, 2012 at 2:22 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Who would think this was the same guy in dumb and dumber….what a performance
tamaolemaa
December 7, 2012 at 2:28 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Great speech. Stuff this southern revisionist history bullshit. The Confederates were nothing but traitorous terrorists. No better than the nazis.
SlingBlade79
December 7, 2012 at 2:51 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
being from Maine I have great respect for this man. I dont think if the 15th Alabama would have defeated the 20th Maine our men would have been shown the same respect as theirs was. True story about Chamberlain giving their soldiers water after they was defeated. The rebs where pigheaded arrogant men. Lee and the Rebel Generals was the only reason those rag tags lasted 4 bloody years. I am truly great full to come from the same state as this man. Long Live The Union!!!
PFB1994
December 7, 2012 at 2:59 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@searching900 No doubt Jeff Daniels deserved an Oscar. I recall very clearly Siskel & Ebert called for him to be nominated for this performance. He wasn’t even nomniated. This is a truly great performance.