Listen up: Photo In A Frame [audio:http://commonsensesongs.com/music/02PhotoInAFrame.mp3]
Our first CD is entitled “Tom Paine’s Blues” for several very good reasons! As an Anglo-American couple, we were attracted to Thomas Paine as an Englishman by birth, who considered his country to be the world, and who was a prime mover of the American War for Independence (as well as the French Revolution), who had an uncanny, prescient understanding of what America could become. His writings, which include “Common Sense”, “The Rights of Man”, “The American
Crisis” (a series of articles) and “The Age of Reason”, among others, displayed courage, wisdom, foresight and a humanistic, ethical sensibility that rings ever more true today. The “blues” part, refers, as you might guess, to the way he might feel if he were alive today, at the widening gap between his vision of the great destiny America might have in the evolution of humankind, and the reality of its behavior in the world as it became more and more powerful.
The CD contains 10 of Graham’s original songs (as well as a poem by Barbara, and two songs by other writers). With the exception of one song, they were all written in 2002/2003, during the frightening course of the Bush2 administration. He watched, and wrote songs about, the bombing and violence of two wars in two years, the quest for global domination, the shrinking of our rights and civil liberties, the secrecy and lies and arrogance. Some songs express anger and frustration, some use irony and humor, some plead for non-violence and a more humane world. If only we could all heal the world with songs!
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