First of all, let's get one thing clear: Nobody can steal "The 8th of January". It's a fiddle tune that's been around since God invented spare ribs and is Public Domain even by the crooked rules of our crooked corporate music industry. I only posted this under that provocative title so that the ASCAP and BMI bots assigned to scanning social media in search of songsters to strong-arm protection money from (And believe me, they actually do exactly that with your Spotify fees!) would trip over it a few hundred times and increase my click-count. Sadly, I'm no Taylor Swift (see photo) and have no discernible fanbase that even a vigilant bot could discern. Therefore I predict that I will be ignored, never to be contacted by the bot bosses who use your music money (!#?) to send sugar-coated letters threatening legal action unless I knuckle under and pay their "modest" copyright fees. This turnip is not worth squeezing, they'll assess, because I'd only benefit if they reconsidered. My fame (or infamy in the case of politicians and other entertainers who use similar attention-getting methods) would soar and I'd get even more clicks. So I'm safe but, really, who knows? I may get enough recognition to actually make some money off Spotify and Pandora. So yes, it's a twisted, paranoia-based strategy I'm gaming, which, in the present state of the world, makes it Kafka-esque and therefore almost viable, if only in my own dreams, which suits me.
Speaking of "twisted", have you been lucky enough to have had your head in the sand this last month or have you, like the whole rest of the Human Race, been inflicted with the latest news from the Middle East? If you're one of the latter, and you're actually curious enough to crave a little context, you might appreciate this little rhyming history lesson (below) from someone who lived through it (me) written over 30 years ago about the first Gulf War in 1991. I know many of you had not even been born yet, so when words or phrases like "Iraq" or "Saddam Hussein" are mentioned your thoughts and prayers go straight to the second debacle perpetrated on the Cradle of Civilization by the Home of the Brave. Nobody talks about Desert Storm anymore, except the Dude, who inhabits a cult film that most of you who stumble on it will be Watching While Stoned (WWS) with no sense of context, nor any desire for one. Never mind then, Dudes, I'm gonna school you anyways, so your choices now are to quit reading or remain curious.
The first Gulf War was a big deal in relation to the perpetration of the current mess playing out before our eyes in Gaza and Israel. It was the first time the U.S. felt bully enough to kick it's "Vietnam Syndrome" in the pants (or some equally-sexy body part) and send hundreds of thousands of ground troops to invade another country...again. The Soviet Union had just disintegrated, which meant that corrupt corporate entities (see rant above😁) like the arms industry, needed new horizons to sell product. Sand dunes overseen by despots loomed large as attractive targets, and so it was that Iraq--located right next door to arch-enemy, Iran, as a bonus--was chosen for the roll-out. Dick (Darth) Cheney, Bush Sr.'s Secretary of Defense, hung catchy names on each phase of the "operation" to describe what U.S. forces would do to the people of the region: Desert Shield for the build-up in Kuwait and the Persian Gulf, Desert Storm for the actual bloodletting, and Desert Penis (not its real name) for what the US did for the next decade to those poor folks in terms of tens of thousands of kids dying due to various blockades and punitive raids etc. etc. until the 2nd Iraq War. It's not much of a stretch to posit that most policy and conflict coming from the Mideast since 1991 have genetic markers dating their origins, mutations or re-occurances back to that Big Mistake.
In the name of Context, then, I offer up this serving of Crow which, as most songsters in my age group know, is best eaten warm, which this Crow wasn't, which is why this song is so bitter, and remains so. For you whippersnappers who actually care, a few reference pointers: Stormin' Norman was the war handle given to Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of Coalition forces during the 1991 Gulf War. "Canons" refers to the old-timey cameras that still had clicking shutters, but whose images could still be projected out to the Universe in e-seconds, and is used here for its double-entendre effect (if you like such things, and if you don't, apologies). For deeper context, remember that during the Vietnam War, which occurred during my own tender youth, real-time war footage was shot with reel-type movie cameras and then overnight-air-mailed overseas to be shown on Walter Cronkite news program the next evening. This was seen as almost a new-age advance in tele-communications compared to the news reels shown in movie theaters during World War II. So, although journalists were still using hard copy for some of there war-image work, Desert Storm was the first, huge American conflict beamed into citizens' living rooms in near-real time.That was a big deal, although now it's taken as much for granted as Climate Change baking your grandkids to the golden crispness of Tater-Tots. Thus my ranting in this song about the unnaturalness of such willful sleepwalkings.
So, that's my story, I'm sticking to it, and without further ado I present to you, straight from the shelves of Inscrutable Obscurity:
The Sands of Araby
Sung to the tune of “8th of January”
(or Jimmy Driftwood’s “Battle of New Orleans”)
In 1991 we took a little cruise
Along with Stormin’ Norman to the nightly evening news
I didn’t leave my couch
And I’m wondering what for
A rube would wanna join the Army just to see a war
Chorus:
They aimed their Canons and the shutters started clickin’
Hurrah for the troops and for Ameriky
They shot the boys live as they gave Saddam a lickin’
In a second to your TV from the Sands of Araby.
We---ll, the photogenic generals they learned their lesson well
You gotta practice up your smilin’ if you got a war to sell
It’s spendy but it’s worth it if your image needs a-fixin’
You can sell a war to anyone if you don’t look like Nixon.
Chorus
The smart bombs rained for 40 days and nights
While the smart image-makers told us we were in the right
And it’s smart not to question all those holes in the sand
In a world where the bombs are gettin’ smarter than the men.
Chorus
They sold that war like a tube of pepsodent
They sold it like a car or like they do a president
There might a been some news, I’m just not sure where they hid it
We’re supposed to have a free press
Do ya wonder why they did it?
Words by Bill LaCroix
