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Woodstock (1969 A​.​D​.​)

from Evolution by Tommy Smith

/

lyrics

Woodstock (1969 A.D.)

How many people can be happy?
How many people can be peaceful?
Half a million in that field full of folk
I counted as I wandered through the morning.
This was the Catskills, not the Malvern hills,
but something good was breathing there.
Was magic the magic? A million eyes
lifted young faces to gantries and amplifiers
banked like some gigantic stage-set-
well, a stage-set it was, a self-written play
rocked in waves of rhythmic clapping,
whistles, announcements, cheers, planes, passing.

Smokes were smoked and backs were stroked.
A man died and a child was born.
Adam and Eve stood naked in a brook.
I should put this in a book.

Rain came, oh did it, thunder and mud.
Put on ponchos, caps, capes!
Bless and exorcise the flood!
Navajo rain-chant sweeps the crowd.

Weather was not the climax though.
What were we all waiting for?
When the clouds had passed and the bands
and songs were ready to be packed away,
in the unspoken expectation, electric,
an instrument rose like a dragon,
a guitar spoke like a dragon.
Starry and scary was the jangled spangle,
not blazing with blandishments that banjaxed banner,
a banshee brandished it in the vanguard.
When Hendrix plucked, it was the mane of a lion.
His fingers did the work of several hands.
But through the growling and through the whining,
through the slurring and through the piping,
through the grovelling and through the scaring,
the tune kept surfacing
almost heartbreaking,
bright and fighting.

Edwin Morgan

credits

from Evolution, released February 25, 2021
Tommy Smith - Tenor Saxophone
Joe Lovano - Tenor Saxophone
John Scofield - Guitar
John Taylor - Piano
John Patitucci - Acoustic Bass
Bill Stewart - Drums

Music by Tommy Smith published by Smythe Music, PRS
Poetry by Edwin Morgan commissioned by Tommy Smith
Recorded April 2003 Avatar Studios, New York City
Engineer: James Farber
Mastering from Analogue Tape: Ben Turner, Fine Splice
Photography: Paul Thorburn
Cover photo of Smith: Robert Burns

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about

Tommy Smith Edinburgh, UK

Born in 1967, Edinburgh. In 1983 Chick Corea recommended Tommy Smith to Gary Burton; he joined his group. Recording over 30 solo albums for Blue Note, Linn, ECM, Spartacus Records, touring 50+ countries, performing with Arild Andersen, Edwin Morgan, John Scofield, Jaco Pastorius, Trilok Gurtu, Dizzy Gillespie. In 2019, he was awarded an OBE for services to jazz from HRH Queen Elizabeth II. ... more

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