Gotta Get Past These Ideas

Back in January 2010, when the odious Pat Robertson made his inane/insane comments about the Haitian earthquake being caused by Haiti's "pact with the devil", I penned this little number, and quickly recorded a demo version, to send to a musician I was going to be playing the tune with at a Haiti disaster relief fundraiser event we were part of, here in Tokyo. Just came across the demo today, while organizing some files, and thought I'd post it here. Instrumentation is very bare bones: pitch pipe, Peruvian bass drum, handclap and voice.

GOTTA GET PAST THESE IDEAS

i heard an old man saying
on American TV
that the earthquake down in Haiti
was cause of a pact with the devil you see

but we gotta get past these ideas
we gotta get past these ideas
we gotta get past these ideas
people if we're gonna move forward

there's a lotta people down in Haiti
who've been knocked off their perch
some of them blaming voodoo
some blame the catholic church

but we gotta get past these ideas...

there's folks who think the earth moves
because of what people do
but the earth's been moving from the very start
before the dinosaurs came through

so we gotta get past these ideas...

now one last thing i'd like to say
before i end this song
the earth will still be moving and shaking
long after the humans are gone

so we gotta get past these ideas...

Copyright P & C Samm Bennett - all rights reserved

• play
• pause
• min volume
• max volume

posted by flapjax at midnite (8 comments total)

nice sentiment, nicely expressed, and it swings too. love the sparseness...
posted by peterkins at 3:39 PM on May 6, 2010

This is great man. I love the lyrics. You make a very strong point witout sounding pissed about it...very civilized.

And man, PITCHPIPE? I haven't had one since I was probably 10. I love it!
posted by snsranch at 1:45 PM on May 7, 2010

Thanks, peterkins and sns.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:05 PM on May 8, 2010

Nice. This song is so sparsely put together, it's hard to resist the temptation to play with combining it with samples from the recently released Lomax in Haiti field recordings. I can't decide whether that would be a good idea or not, though.
posted by umbú at 6:12 PM on May 9, 2010

I wouldn't mind, umbú. You have really good sensibilities, so I reckon you'd do a good job of it. Feel free!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:31 PM on May 9, 2010

Oh, man, the pitch pipe rules.

Nice sense of space in this one, too. It's like a cozy little hut inside the bass drum.
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 2:42 AM on May 11, 2010

It's like a cozy little hut inside the bass drum.

I like that! That's where I wanna live!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 2:47 AM on May 11, 2010

Yeah, that fleece looks warm!
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 3:11 AM on May 11, 2010