I consider this song my trump card defense against any right-winger who tries to dismiss Allen Ginsberg with the conservative truism that hippies are soft on communism. Key graf:

I don’t like communist Censorship of my books
I don’t like Marxists complaining about my looks
I don’t like Castro insulting members of my sex
Leftists insisting we got the mystic Fix

I don’t like Capitalists selling me gasoline Coke
Multinationals burning Amazon trees to smoke
Big Corporation takeover media mind
I don’t like the Top-bananas that’re robbing Guatemala banks blind

I don’t like K.G.B. Gulag concentration camps
I don’t like the Maoists’ Cambodian Death Dance
15 Million were killed by Stalin Secretary of Terror
He has killed our old Red Revolution for ever

More importantly, the totality of his pome points out with simplicity that all ideologies have some kind of down side. Full lyrics here.

On a personal note, the idea of “first thought, best thought” — which Ginsberg championed but did not create — is an important one for me in my approach to personal correspondence.

Allen Ginsberg - Capitol Air (buy)

Posted by thelumberjackthief |