Talkin' Return of the Great Gangsta Folk Scare Blues

Well I was born in 1965

That was a hell of a good time to be alive

Except that by the age of ten

The music had turned crap again

Now people say they wanna bring back the 70's

I say hey give the bad music of today a chance

Punk came round, that was pretty scary

It was like a contemporary Peter, Paul and Mary

Shocking!

And before the 80's got too far

It was time for me to pick up my guitar

Picked it up

Looked good!

All my friends turned up their noses

At Freewheelin' and For The Roses

Preferring image over substance

A hairstyle for a musical influence

All those Ultravox records, they're gathering dust

But me, I'm still listening to Live Rust

And if the 90's are the 60's turned upside down

Then the 80's were the 60's the right way up

Only with half the top cut off...

If you think about it!

And in the town where I did live

There was no-one I could do hoot night with

So I sat alone with my six strings

And I learned how to play and sing

Woody Guthrie's guitar killed fascists and crime

But in Hastings, East Sussex, South of England

My guitar killed time...

And I got gigs opening for bands

And things would get outta hand

Cos big men would yell out their derision

So I developed humor as a defense mechanism...

The main band of the night would be...

And I'd go on first and I'd get carried away...

Literally

And I moved to the big old smoky city

Just after University

And I got a gig opening for a friend of mine

Where I happened to be playing my ace in the right place at the

Right time...

So I gave up my PhD

To become a dustbowl folky

That's Phil Ochs not Phil Oakey

And then I learned the Folksinger's Prayer and it goes like this:

Our Father

Who art on Folkways