The World Today
| The World Today | |
|---|---|
| John Lee Hooker , Alan Wilson | |
| publication | 1971 |
| length | 7:22 |
| Genre (s) | blues |
| text | John Lee Hooker |
| Publisher (s) | Liberty Records |
| album | Hooker 'n Heat |
The World Today is a song by the American blues musician John Lee Hooker (1917-2001). It was recorded on the double album Hooker 'n Heat ( Liberty Records ) together with the blues rock band Canned Heat in May 1970 and has a length of just under eight minutes. In 1996 it also appeared on the album The Best of Hooker 'n Heat ( Capitol Records ), which summarizes ten songs from the original. Hooker 'n Heat was reissued in 1991 and 2004.
Content and background
Hooker sings to the guitar and is cautiously accompanied on the piano by Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson , who recorded the last album here before his death in the same year. A drum kit is replaced by Hooker's typical "stomping" . He first announces the slow song, which is held as a chant: “It's a slow-goin 'thing ... it's about what happenin' today, there will be happenin 'maybe four, five years from today ... all over the world. I want you listen to this. ” The song is to be understood against the background of the worldwide movement of 68 , an America divided over the question of equal treatment for whites and blacks and, especially with regard to the recording date, of the Kent State massacre at which on On May 4, 1970 four students demonstrating against the Vietnam War were shot dead by soldiers of the American National Guard and nine others were injured, some seriously. The then 52-year-old Hooker laments the state of a world torn by conflicts as a "nightmare" and takes the side of a youth who will learn from the mistakes of their parents' generation and replace them:
"Look at here now, you'll find some of them old people. They're not hip to the modern days. They want their kids to live like they live. But no, them days are gone. It's a brand new world. […] The old folks, when they're gone, […] it'll be a better world to live in. "
literature
- Charles Shaar Murray: Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American Twentieth Century, p. 123 f . Canongate Books, Edinburgh 2011, ISBN 978-0-85786-204-4 . (New edition of the book published by Penguin in 1999) Online: limited preview in the Google book search
- Charles Shaar Murray: John Lee Hooker, the boogie man . Hannibal Verlag, Höfen 2000, ISBN 3-85445-186-5 .
Web links
- Lyrics (Engl.)
- Cover text of the double album (Engl.)
- Hooker 'n Heat at Allmusic (Engl.)
- Track list (German)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Allmusic.com. Retrieved March 9, 2012 .
- ↑ track list. Retrieved March 9, 2012 .
- ^ "There is another Blues great who really shines on this album - Alan, Blind Owl 'Wilson. This is the last album that the Owl was to record, for he died suddenly, shortly after the album was finished. "-" One mike on the amp, one for his voice, and one to pick up John's stompin '- he never quits stompin '! “ Cover text of the double album. Retrieved March 9, 2012 .
- ^ Charles Shaar Murray: Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American Twentieth Century, p. 123 . Canongate Books, Edinburgh 2011, ISBN 978-0-85786-204-4 . (New edition of the book published by Penguin in 1999) Online: limited preview in the Google book search
- ↑ Lyrics. Retrieved October 23, 2012 .
- ^ Entry at the German National Library