quinta-feira, julho 03, 2008
Mike Harding
Pela maravilha do iTunes, e pela módica quantia de 9,99€, descarreguei o meu primeiro CD. Mike Harding e o seu Bomber's Moon. Órfão ainda antes de nascer em Manchester no ano de 1944, Mike Harding é um desses homens pouco conhecidos fora do Reino Unido. Músico exímio, genial cómico de "stand up", fotógrafo de rara sensibilidade, escritor e compositor, Mike Harding tem como marca indelével em toda a sua obra a defesa dos mais fracos, desses para quem a esperança é uma janela pequenina, lá bem alto e inacessível.
Começa o disco com o tema God Help the Poor. Talvez seja de ouvir o que a propósito diz o próprio Harding:
GOD HELP THE POOR
This song explains itself although I would just like to say two things: Firstly, the arrangement is based on Cajun and Tex Mex music hence the accordion and cornet. Secondly I'm not poor now but I was once. I had a wife and two children, lived in a rented terraced house in Lower Crumpsall that was so small the mice were hump backed. I lost my job as a labourer and for months walked the streets looking for work. It got so desperate that at one stage we took the four three penny bits that were used to balance the pendulum in the old clock we had and spent it on a tin of beans for the kids so that at least they had something to eat. During the seventies it looked as though things were getting better for everybody then Thatcher flew in on the three o'clock broom and cardboard cities and beggars started appearing on the streets. My one wish is that some day I see Mark and Carol Thatcher selling the Big Issue outside Marks and Spencer.
Muito embora a marcada pronúncia regional possa dificultar a compreensão para aqueles que não dominem perfeitamente a língua inglesa, este é seguramente um disco que vale a pena e que pode dar a cada um mais motivos para reflectir sobre o mundo, sobre o mundo como ele efectivamente é.
Como breve amostra aqui fica a letra de Bomber's Moon, homenagem de Harding ao pai morto na guerra:
Bomber's Moon by Mike Harding:
'44 in Bomber County
Young men waiting for the night
In the hedgerows birds are singing
Calling in the falling light
And the Captain says
"Tonight there'll be a bomber's moon
We'll be there and back
Underneath a bomber's moon
A thousand bombers over the Northern Sea
Heading out...out for Germany"
Chalkie White stands at the dartboard
Curly Thompson writes to his wife
Nobby Clarke and Jumbo Johnson
Are playing cards and smoking pipes
And over the hangars rises a bomber's moon
Full and clear, rising as the engines croon
And the planes, they taxi out on to Runway Five
And sail off out, into the silvery night
Sandy Campbell checks his oil gauge
The Belgian coast is coming soon
Curly Thompson lifts his sextant
And lines up on the bomber's moon
And the waves are shining there
Beneath the bomber's moon
Lancasters flying high
Below the bomber's moon
Rumbling in along the Belgian coast
A thousand silver shrouded ghosts
Flak flies up around the city
Jumbo Johnson banks his plane
Goes in low and drops his payload
Turns to join the pack again
And people are dying there
Below the bomber's moon
The city's a raging hell
Below the bomber's moon
The planes head out
Towards the Northern Sea
Young men coming home from victory
Over Belgian came the fighters
Flying high against the night
Curly Thompson saw them coming
Closing in before he died
And the young men shot them down
Below the bomber's moon
Shot them down in flames
Below the bomber's moon
Young men sending young men
To their graves
Saw them down
Into the North Sea waves
'83 in Bomber County
Mrs. White dusts the picture and she cries
Chalkie White in uniform
Looking as he did the day he died
For God's sake, no more bomber's moons!
No more young men growing up to die too soon
Old men sending young men out to die
Young men dying for a politician's lies
For God's sake, no more bomber's moons!
No more young men growing up to die too soon
Old men sending young men out to kill!
If we don't stop them, then they never will
No more, no more bomber's moons
No more, no more bomber's moons
No more, no more bomber's moons
No more, no more bomber's moons...
