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#11-A Great Man (1979)
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Single   $0.5
My first political song is not to be taken literally
folk funny political sixties novelty gentle prolific idiosyncratic lehrer jefferson airplane ochs paxton steve goodman
Artist picture
Tom Paxton meets Jefferson Airplane. Extremely prolific singer songwriter with a wide range of styles from bizarre novelty tunes and surrealistic poetic songs t
With more than 300 songs and counting and for more than 30 years, I have written in a variety of acoustic styles from novelty tunes to love songs to historical ballads to poetic surrealistic songs to retro-acoustic pop. From bizarre to traditional from funny to poignant, whatever style the song is in, the melodies are usually memorable and the lyrics unpredictable. This site will eventually contain rough often first take demos of my entire song catalogue. Many of the earliest songs when I first started writing will of course be shaky. So expect the songs to get better as time goes on. Feel free to come back and browse often as I will constantly be adding songs, one by one in chronological order, starting in 1974. If you are looking for some unusual songs to cover from a little known but unique artist, you have come to the right place. Just e-mail me. If you find a song here that intrigues you, but you don't like a line or two, or you think it needs a bridge, drop me an e-mail and maybe you can earn writer's credit if it gets that song to be recorded or performed.... otherwise just enjoy. You can become a Rob Lincoln fan at no cost to you. I promise that if you keep coming back there will be some real surprises along the way. While mostly acoustic, some original material will veer into folk rock and even 60's pop, but the garage rock and loudest material will also be found in full band arrangement at soundclick.com/abrasiveflowers Eventually some of these 300+ tunes may be rerecorded and make it on to CD, including a novelty CD that would be suitable for Dr. Demento or an historical ballad CD or a political song CD--but until then, this is the only site you can hear most of these songs. (A few of my songs CAN be found on songramp.com/RobLincoln and myspace.com/lessickandlincoln)
Song Info
Charts
Peak #298
Peak in subgenre #20
Author
Rob Lincoln
Rights
1979
Uploaded
December 17, 2006
Track Files
MP3
MP3 2.2 MB 128 kbps 2:23
Story behind the song
America loves Harry Truman, but the tens of thousands of children who were incinerated and the hundreds of thousands who died in agony didn't care if he was fiesty and played the piano. Dick Nixon loved watching football and was a great dad, but the 100,000+ children who were burned to death, shot or had their family member die in a shower of bombs didn't appreciate those endearing aspects of his personality. GW may really be more personable than Gore but would boring Al have caused the death of between 35,000 and 600,000 Iraqi civilians thus far? Will any Great Man be held accountable? Not if they are an American president. They are portrayed as one of us. We know their family members' names and their vacation spots better than how many deaths they are directly responsible for. At best some may question whether the 2,500 US soldiers deaths have been necessary in Iraq. Civilian deaths are not even counted by the US Army. It's just "collateral damage." Mp3 listeners gave this a 2.4 out of 5..... Comments included this one: "Hey I had no idea you held left wing views. I could have sworn you wore vote for Ford buttons in 1976 got your hair cut like Haldeman in 1974. Anyway the song sounding more than a little Dylanesque." "#11 gets 2.5...there were alot of things I liked about the song, especially the tag line, but the song just doesn't hold together. The idea is great, but it needed much more time in the oven." "I like this one""As I heard the melody and lyrics, the first thought that came into my mind was that it sounded like a song by the Kinks called a "Well Respected Man" (I think that is the Title). But the song didn't exactly follow the Kinks song, it stayed far enough away from the song and followed a little different path."
Lyrics
He was a great man and a leader too He knew how to keep his country on the move And he was a clever man and a humble one too Boy was there anything that man couldnt do? 2x He had such gifts he could play the piano He could give a speech and make you think that everything was so He liked the job, was tough but loved puppies too Boy was there anything that man couldn't do? (2x) He loved his kids and they sure loved him too Liked to play baseball and watch football on the tube And he loved his wife, yeh he was just like me and you Boy was there anything that man couldn't do? (2x) Now he's made some tough decisions, killed a thousand children or so But they were just some foreigners and he did it to save lives you know Or he did it for freedom, whatever, just wave red, white, and blue Boy was there anything that man couldn't do? (3x) Boy is there anything these men cannot do
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