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Down is the New Up

by The Chris Chandler Show

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about

This is a single for the 2020 election - released two weeks before

lyrics

Down is the New Up/ The New World
Chandler/ X

Honest to goodness
The bars weren't open this morning
They must have been voting for a new president of something

Under the Bush administration
I spent about 300 days a year doing
nothing but making George W Bush Joke
But under Trump,
I have barely mentioned his name.

At first I did not want to add to the noise out there...
(and there is a lot of NOISE out there!)
then I didn't want to go off half cocked...
then I wasn't sure which direction to fire
because bullets ricochet
in funny directions when you live in a bubble.
That is floating like the ghosts of Joe Hill, Harriet Tubman, Eugene Debbs, Mother Jones
and Caesar Chavez

Do you have a quarter?
I said, "Yes", because I did
Honest to goodness, the tears have been falling
All over this country's face

It was better before, before they voted for What's-His-Name
This was supposed to be the new world
It was better before, before they voted for What's-His-Name
This was supposed to be the new world
1:41
and this got me to thinking...
If a ghost can walk through walls -
Why doesn’t he fall through the floor?
At that point I realized
I was on the edge of something really big...
standing upon a giant precipice.
And that is probably not a good time to put your
best foot forward...
I mean.
I’ve always liked the metaphor of hell being beneath us...
‘Cause Sometimes...
Ya gotta go through hell...
Don’t we know it!
Aren’t we all goin through hell these days?
but sometimes ya gotta go through hell
Sometimes...
Ya gotta get down there and wrestle ‘dem demons
Hell,... Sometimes...
Ya gotta get down there
and jello wrestle ‘dem demons -
but when yer goin’ through hell, like we’re all goin’ through right now - what ya gotta do is keep going -
‘cause the world is round
and if you keep goin throuh hell, and you keep goin’
you’re gone’ come out on the other side -
wondering why everyone is speaking in Australian accent.
2:41
It was better before, before they voted for What's-His-Name
In the Trump Era,


This was supposed to be the new world
down is the new up

It was better before, before they voted for What's-His-Name

"Make America Great Again”

This was supposed to be the new world
2:55
and ”America First”
2:58
It was better before, before they voted for What's-His-Name

are contradictory statements -

This was supposed to be the new world


America will be great again,
when she sees herself IN the
world not AS the world.

America will be great again
when she treats her
neighbors like she would herself.

She will be great again
when she realizes that
“ America First”
implies that there is a race
... in which one could be or become first in
- in the first place.
Not America First...
Earth First...

Flint Ford Auto
Mobile, Alabama
Windshield Wiper
Buffalo, New York
Gary, Indiana
Don't forget the Motor City
Washington, D.C
Now is not all we need.



What he is proposing is The wall building, The Trade wars is Nationalism... Pure and simple...
and the infrastructure spending,
that is being proposed is well... socialism...
it is in fact - a word that I don’t like to use that often because I think it waters it down... but there is no way around it - it is in fact, by by definition..
National Socialism.
so if WE are looking for a way forward...
and I think we are all looking for a way forward...
let us grab every crow bar,
every monkey wrench,
every guitar,
every paintbrush
Every Ballot
and use them as a tool
to to pry the socialism away from the nationalism.


It was better before, before they voted for What's-His-Name
This was supposed to be the new world
It was better before, before they voted for What's-His-Name
This was supposed to be the new world



... this Cabinet of Billionaires
and I want you to mention this to your conservative friends and family, because i know you’ve got them...
The rich that are in power
could really care less about any of this whako
conservative agenda…
But as long as there is something resembling a
government, the rich need large numbers of people to
support them.
So they will say or do anything to stay in office.
(hear this!)
they don’t actually care of these social issues.
They don’t NEED to care.
They don’t LIVE in society.
They have their own school systems,
their own hospitals.
They have their own police force.
Soon they will have their own military.
I am not afraid of Iran getting the bomb.
I am afraid of Exxon getting the bomb.

It was better before, before they voted for What's-His-Name
This was supposed to be the new world
It was better before, before they voted for What's-His-Name
This was supposed to be the new world


Oh sure, they will give money to the church to show they
“Care” about social issues.
But, we all know giving money to the church doesn't
make you a good person any more than buying tickets to
the game makes you a third-baseman.

What the church offers to the rich is people.
The one thing the 1% does not have
is people -
99% of us to be exact.



All we need is money
Just give us what you can spare
Twenty or thirty pounds of potatoes
Or twenty or thirty beers
6:41


But wait a second...
within the 99% a whole lotta
working class folks voted for Trump!
and are planning on voting for him again.
Poor people. MY people!
What did we do SO wrong
to allow your average red neck to
believe a billionaire
descending from the Heavens
on a gold plated escalator
in a Manhattan skyscraper
has their interests at heart?
To make the world GREAT again, we
WE have to burst our own bubbles!
We have to go out there and yes,
befriend a red neck.
DO NOT UNFRIEND THEM!
befriend them (us)
Because regardless of how this election goes,
we are still a divided nation.
But, if each and every one of us goes out and befriends,
and turns around!
one Trump Supporter
we could make America Great again...
and THAT America
maybe (just maybe)
COULD help make the world great again.


It was better before, before they voted for What's-His-Name

Walk softly

This was supposed to be the new world

and carry a big carrot.
It was better before, before they voted for What's-His-Name

because like I’ve always said -

This was supposed to be the new world

if you think there is a
cutting edge

It was better before, before they voted for What's-His-Name

Than you ain’t on it.

This was supposed to be the new world


Which is why I don’t think this is that “edgy” of a
thought...

...if the rich can cross the lines
between right and wrong
like ghosts walk through walls - maybe it is time they
also fell through the floor.

It was better before, before they voted for What's-His-Name

And maybe (just maybe)

This was supposed to be the new world

they will all go straight to hell -

This was supposed to be the new world

and frankly, that’s the problem...

This was supposed to be the new world

the rich have never been to hell.

This was supposed to be the new world

They have never known suffering, want or need.

This was supposed to be the new world


so maybe,
if they spent an hour
experiencing the hell
that you and I go through on a daily basis,

they would understand what hell really is
and remember that the world is round.
and maybe, they would keep going until
We all come out on the other side.

wondering
why everybody is speaking
with an Australian accent.

credits

released October 15, 2020
Chris Chandler: Spoken Word
Sean Shanahan: Guitar, Vocals, Bass
Michelle Sellers: Vocals
Oliver Steck: Trumpet, Vocals
Jarrod Kaplan: Drums

Recorded by Sean Shanahan at Shanahan Sound

"The New World" by John Doe and Excene Cervenka

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about

The Chris Chandler Show Asbury Park, New Jersey

Few musicians can claim "on-the roadisms" the way Chandler can. He is a true veteran of the The United States of Generica. His anthology of road tales transforms into a flock of doves beneath the musical high-wire act.

He has worked with everyone from Allen Ginsberg to Ani DiFranco and Pete Seeger to Mojo Nixon. Utah Phillips says, "Chris Chandler is the best performance poet I have ever seen."
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