I great number of us have been conditioned to be pessimists. Yet it only takes a little faith to beat that conditioning. Your enemies know it too.
The tune below became popular when I was still in my twenties and I had not yet met my wife. I definitely had grown to like the sound of the psychedelic mix added to the tune, but I'm sure I didn't think much of the lyrics even then. I was just never that pessimistic.
I'm sad to say that many fellow baby boomers, especially those a few years younger, did feel at a loss to solve the worlds problems as they had been laid out by the Neo-Malthusians ten years earlier. How many followed the pessimistic maladvice of Timothy Leary's "turn on, tune in, drop out" that are echoed in these lyrics? Too many that I knew and have since lost touch with, that's for sure.
But what about the "faithful?"
Even those who still feel they are loyal to the Judeo-Christian ethos will say to me "but, yeah, there are too many people." The thought that God had given mankind the intellect to solve the issues of population without resorting to neopaganistic human sacrifices is a faith that has been driven out of them if they ever had an inclination to have such faith to begin with. The bible does not simply say "be fruitful and multiply." It says
"Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth."Thus I tell you that the ethos foresaw the fear so many of you believe in today. See how it suggests that man has all he needs to follow this assigned purpose for his life. The purpose for his life? Well, it IS the very first task found in Genesis. But without faith? As I explained in the post that preceded this, those who want power to rule us all as if we were all dumb brutes hate the Judeo-Christian Ethic. They want the very notion of faith in something higher and more powerful than them – a just and final Judge and Protector – never to enter our minds.
Who exactly did Alvin Lee tell "So I'll leave it up to you-ooo-ooo" in his lyric? In retrospect he and that "but I don't know what to do" generation granted the power to solve it all to the
I'D LOVE TO CHANGE THE WORLD
by Alvin Lee of Ten Years After
Spoken 'Now, turn on'
Everywhere is freaks and hairys
Dykes and fairies
Tell me where is sanity?
Tax the rich, feed the poor [Heh Obama!]Till there are no rich no more? [Heh, Thatcher!]
I'd love to change the world
(Dee-dee-dee-dee)
But I don't know what to do
(Dee-eee-dee-dee-dee-dee)
So I'll leave it up to you-ooo-ooo
(Be in my prayer)
Population, keeps on breedin'Nation bleedin', still more feedin'
Economy
Life is funny, skies are sunny
Bees made honey, who needs money?
Monopoly
I'd love to change the world
But I don't know what to do
(Dee-eee-dee-dee-dee-dee)
So I'll leave it up to you-you-ooo
(We-eee-dee-dee-dee-dee)
Oh, yeah!
(Rich or poor)
(It's your fault)
(Screw you)
More pollutions, there's no solutions
Restitution, mass confusions
Spread the word
Rich or poor
Save the earth
Stop the war
Spoken:
(And we've got nothin' to do)
(Just turn on)
I'd love to change the world
But I don't know what to do
So I'll leave it up to you-ooo-ooo, woo-ooo
Woo-ooo-ooo-ooo
(Dee-eee-dee-dee-dee-dee)
Just turn me on.
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If forty years after Ten Years After you believe the world is now a better place than then, you're probably a member of the press corps. Twenty years after Ten Years After the National Press Club hosted a dinner where the topic was the need for Americans to endure Draconian rule.
ReplyDeleteYou're making me feel old.
ReplyDeleteI liked Ten Years After.
Time to eat my last Soylent Green and go to the center to "retire".
Several lyrics sites give the lyric you wrote "Till we run out, rich no more" as actually "Till there are no rich no more", which is the way I always heard it (I still have that album on vinyl), while a few other lyrics sites agree with your hearing of it.
ReplyDeleteTo your point, I wonder how many of the younger generation who are refusing to have children (see "America Alone") are doing so, at least in part, subconsciously because they have been imprinted with the "too many people" theme.
On another track, one of my second cousins and her husband decided not to have kids explicitly because they expect an apocalypse of some kind. She has 3 brothers; 2 have no kids, one has 2.
Daniel K Day
Chilling isn't it Ed?
ReplyDeleteYes, I like Ten Years After too. It wasn't until recently that I came to view the band's name as at least coincidentally tied to the Malthusian resurgence of the early 60s given what this most famous of their songs was about.
Thanks for noticing Dan. Yes, I believe your version is what I hear too. I am going to correct it to reflect what you just said.
ReplyDeleteI had gotten this version from one of the sites that probably wrote it down wrong OR transcribed it from someone else's version of the song.
Yes "imprinting" is another way to say that conditioning has been achieved. (I'm indebted to CS Lewis when I use that word.) I'm working hard to figure out ways to counter that imprinting. I fear I personally am not being very successful, but there are signs that my kid's generation are more optimistic. We certainly have left them with a challenge that you and I never really had to face.