Friday, October 13, 2017

Two songs figure prominently in Bill McKibben's new cli-fi comic caper novel RADIO FREE VERMONT: [lyrics are here]


Two songs figure prominently in Bill McKibben's new comic cli-fi caper novel titled RADIO FREE VERMONT.


One of them is AH, MARY and here are the lyrics and the YouTube link where Grace Potter performs on the Jay Leno Show in 2007


She's skilled at the art of deception and she knows it
She's got dirty money that she plays with all the time
Yeah, she waters the garden and maybe she just likes the hoses
She puts herself just a notch above human kind
Ah, Mary
She'll bake you cookies then she'll burn your town
Ah, Mary
Ashes, ashes but she won't fall down
She's the beat of my heart
She's the shot of a gun
She'll be the end of me
And maybe everyone
Yeah, she's the beat of my heart
She's the shot of a gun
She'll be the end of me
And maybe everyone
Call her a bully, she'll blow up your whole damn playground
Pour her a drink and watch it go straight to her head
She'll take you so high up and cover her eyes as you fall down
Then in the morning, don't be surprised if you're dead
Ah, Mary
She'll

YOUTUBE LINK, words and music by Grace Potter



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The other song in the novel is ''O-o-H CHILD'' by Stan Vincent in 1970

YOUTUBE link

"O-o-h Child" was a 1970 single recorded by Chicago soul family group the Five Stairsteps and released on the Buddah label. Previously, the Five Stairsteps had had peripheral success recording in Chicago with Curtis Mayfield: when Mayfield's workload precluded his continuing to work with the group they were reassigned to Stan Vincent, an in-house producer for Buddah Records, who had recently scored a Top Ten hit with the Lou Christie single "I'm Gonna Make You Mine". Vincent wrote the song for his son, Chuck. The Five Stairsteps' debut collaboration with Vincent was originally formatted with the group's rendition of "Dear Prudence" as the A-side with Vincent's original composition "O-o-h Child" as B-side. However, "O-o-h Child" broke out in the key markets of Philadelphia and Detroit to rise as high as #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1970. the track's R&B chart impact was more muted with a #14 peak, although "O-o-h Child" is now regarded as a "soft soul" classic. Billboard ranked the record as the No. 21 song of 1970. The Five Stairsteps' only pop Top 40 hit, "O-o-h Child" would be the group's last R&B top 40 hit (they had several top 40 R&B hits in the 1960s) until 1976's "From Us to You". Included on the band's The Stairsteps album from 1970, it has become the Stairsteps' signature song and has inspired more than twenty covers since its release. The song featured various members, including lone female member and eldest sister Alohe, brothers Keni, Dennis, James, and lead singer Clarence Burke, Jr. singing in various parts of the song.





The lyrics tell the listener that "things are gonna get easier" in times of strife. The song's uplifting message helped the song to become popular among pop and rhythm and blues audiences when it was released.

LYRICS HERE

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